Podcasting in High Definition: Secrets of Professional Podcast and Video Production

We're gonna do something a little bit different on the show today. Instead of just

going into a single podcaster studio, we are actually going

to a professional podcast studio setup. We are chatting

with Charlie Birney. He is the cofounder and CLO at

Podville Media. It's a podcast studio and production center

and in the Washington DC area. Charlie is also the

author of the tale of podcasting, and, we'll have a link

to it so you could check that out. Charlie, it is great to chat with

you today. It is great to chat with you, Mathew, and nice to see you

again after so many years. It's just wonderful. And I'm excited about

this. It is great to see you again and and excited to chat with you.

And and, you know, I I've definitely heard you chat with me about the studio

a little bit, but it'll be nice to get a little bit more in-depth on

it today. But just to kinda kick off, what was the

impetus for starting this studio? Like, how did that get

going? Well, when we first met,

I think I was still in Gaithersburg, so I'm into my 3rd location.

And in Gaithersburg, I was there for

originally unrelated podcast reasons, but it's part of the story. I was in a

coworking space. And from my background in real estate,

I I approached coworking with sort of how can this work, and, obviously, we've

seen the rise and fall, if you will, of WeWork, and that still has somewhat

to be determined. But there I was sitting in a brand new coworking space

with 1 on one other guy who did financial advice,

financial, services. And, actually, he's still doing a

podcast, doing really well, and I did, oh, close to a 100 episodes

of, Launch Financial with Brad Sherman of Sherman Wealth. And

Do you know Brad? Do you know Brad? I do. I I I chatted with

him a few times. Nice guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy.

So at any rate, I was in this coworking space and was, they were

hoping I could help promote it. I live in Montgomery County, and,

that's where the building was in Gaithersburg, Maryland here. And

one day, my friend Jeff Davis walked in, and he was doing some PR

for this new space. They were gonna get the county executive in, etcetera, etcetera.

And, he had got me started listening to

podcasts. The first guy who ever got me started listening to podcasts, Mathew.

We and I still listen to a show called For Immediate Release about

B to B marketing, basically. And Jeff was there.

We were probably having a sandwich one day, and I said, Jeff, why don't we

do a podcast in this coworking space? Because every

office in you know, around the the whole office layout is

doing something different. They had an enewsletter

lot of Pat Owens. I I listened to Ray Ortega. I listened to

Cliff Ravenscraft back in the beginning and tried to figure out what this

thing podcasting was. I'm an amateur musician, so I thought I could use

my PA system. You can't use a PA system to make a podcast,

but you can make a lot of noise. So I bought a $100

Behringer 4 track and used the Shure SM 57

that I had for open mic and stuff like that. And I started

to make a podcast called launch work Launch Podcast,

which was to support Launch, workplaces, and they would

put that episode out in their weekly newsletter. And I remember

first someone coming to me and say, I don't know what a podcast is

or, I how long will this be? And I said, it's as long as

you're interesting.

Episodes. And so we had a lot of fun. I did, I think, about 88

or 89 episodes before I partnered

with my current business partner, Oscar Ceballos, and moved

to Glover Park, which is if you're a Washingtonian or, you know, Washington, it's kinda

North Georgetown on Wisconsin Avenue. He had

started a studio, a one room studio

that came out of a terrestrial radio show, and all those formats

flopped. You remember that, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12 years

ago, and jack radio and all these other things. So they dumped

all their radio, if you'll forgive the expression, shock jocks.

And, there was a show called the Don and Mike show, and that became the

Mike O'Meara show. And so he went to Mike

O'Meara and said, let's do a podcast. And I think Mike O'Meara said, what's a

podcast? And I remember when I started listening to it and

found found it, you know, trying to find

Podcasting 10 years ago was was pretty Podcasting. And,

found finally found episode 1, and here on the microphone

in my ears comes Mike O'Meara saying, I just want all of you out there

to know that I'm not one of you. And I thought, god almighty, why

would he say that? So it's a very successful

podcast, a great example of a podcast that's that monetizes

itself. We still host that in our studios every day. So Oscar

had one little studio in this little office building in Glover

Park. We met. I interviewed him on one of my shows.

He was doing business school with, Smith School of

Business through University of Maryland at the time, and he did an outreach group. I'd

never been to the Reagan Center, and he did an outreach group for

his business degree at the Reagan Center about podcasting and

apps. And so I heard about it on their show. I signed up. I went

to it. And the way he tells the story, I'm telling it, but is I

kept asking good questions. So he said, well, when we do a breakout group,

I wanna sit with you. And that was the genesis of our first studio

in Glover Park. So we eventually took over half

of the third floor and and, most of the Tech

floor, which had been a passport office. And I had a wonderful bullpen,

Mathew. I'd always dreamed of being a comic strip artist. As you look

at some of my stuff online, you'll know I like to draw a lot. I've

gotten 2 new drawings in the past. They're great. I've dreamed of having a

bullpen. And at that time, this was before COVID, and we

had this large room where they'd assembled all the passports, so it had a

railing and a and desks around the edge of it. We used to have 10

people in there talking. We would buy lunch every day and have 10 people in

there talking and editing, and it was a joy. And so we

then we changed the 3rd floor to have 2 studios

back to back. So we had 1 production room, in the middle, and we

could use it sort of a double sided production room and then a third

studio for a newscaster who came in, sort of her studio for

the most part, and did, the Angie Goff show. She's a local,

news reporter here and a wonderful miss Angie.

So that were those were the days when my real estate heart would

when all 3 studios were going at the same time. That was just joy.

We were on kind of a membership format we just started out with,

but the truth of it is it just kept evolving as you would

assume. And we kept giving so much back to the clients

and evolving their shows and giving so much advice. By that time,

I did know what I was doing. And when you paired Oscar and I together,

I always liked running something with 2 people at the top. We had a

lot to give. We gave away hours and hours and hours and hours

of free podcast marketing and podcast advice. And

the truth of it is people who would rent the studios, the idea

was some some of them would learn how to run them, and we would let

them run them, but sometimes we would come in and run. It was a fee

structure. There just weren't anybody learning how to run their own studio. There

was one, Sarah Frazier, who's out in LA now, and we're very close.

But we ended up being sort of a Blue Diamond podcast

studio where we would help people evolve their shows. And what they wanted to come

in is, I'm sure you would know, Mathew, is they wanted to come in, have

a cup of coffee waiting on the table, sit down, and talk, and create, and

they didn't wanna deal with any of the other issues. We started doing

Santana Moss's podcast. He was really doing it as a

proving exercise to get to the big leagues and get on network television. He's former

Washington red skin. And the University of Miami alumni. Yeah.

Exactly. Right? And so we did. Tech would come in and pay

me in cash, and I would freak out. And and that's when

social media was evolving. We were doing Tana's show, and Instagram

stories came out one day, and we were producing video for stories that

afternoon and trying to post it. So we we evolved into doing the podcast,

to doing very high end video podcast, to doing the social media

content, whether it was Twitter, whether it was Facebook, whether it was

Instagram, and then, of course, now TikTok, and YouTube

shorts. But we would do those for the clients. It just became in,

so we sort of turned into a high end production studio.

And I love the days at Glover Park, but it was situated

for my commercial real estate mind. It wasn't situated near a

metro. Now I know this from real estate, Mathew.

Not it doesn't mean people will use the metro, but they

like knowing there's a metro there, and that's Washington for you. So we

ultimately moved really during COVID. We had started to

occupy one room at the studio here at 1900 M Street,

to do a video production for a local marketing guy who

wanted a a video production, and then we started working with ESPN

doing a couple of their shows under the,

sub name of, The Undefeated, which became landscape,

in the ESPN family. And then sort of COVID

hit, and we started to think what was gonna work. We ended up taking

over this half of the floor of the 4th floor here

and moving out of Glover Park completely. So we still have 3 studios.

1 is sort of small one. You can do 2 people or a 1 person

shot with a camera facing you for the a camera facing you for the person

who's inevitably remote. And then a slightly larger

studio, we can do 2 or 3 or even 4 people in a pinch, and

we've got a very custom made desk for that. And then this the original large

room that we rented where we can do essentially television shows. We can

do the White House Historical Association is set up in one corner

and this ESPN show that we do for Dominique Foxworth in the other side of

the room. And it's complicated. You know? When I met you, I was

still learning about microphones, and we've had to learn about lighting

and the things about lighting that I know and don't know could you know, are

overwhelming. So to do a really good shot that's that

you could use on TV, you've gotta eliminate all shadows, and

we've the money we've spent on lighting, if I knew, I'd I'd go into

another career, probably. Well, so I I

wanna I wanna talk to you, actually. Going back to the equipment, that's an Podcasting,

place to bring up because when podcasters are getting started, right, they're working in

their home, they're working in their office. Right? Maybe they're taking it on the road.

You know, we're typically looking at equipment that's in the 60

to maybe $150 microphone range or maybe a mixer in the

2 to $600 range. Obviously, when you're dealing with

a professional studio, you are bringing in the likes of an ESPN and, you

know, former NFL players and, you know, other big wigs in

and around our nation's capital, you have to really step up

your performance. So We did. What, like,

what were you thinking about when you were making investments in

microphones and cameras and whatnot to really turn

this into a professional operation? Well, it's a

great question. I call it falling forward or to put it in the

language of Chris Kremitzos from PodFest. It's starting ugly.

I and and as I think I told you off mic, when I started out,

I had some Shure SM 57, the kind of thing you could use to

put a nail into a board practically. But it wasn't until I

partnered with Oscar, and I think you're on an RE27 there, perhaps. I

know I am I first talked on a microphone

that cost more than, you know, $70, and it

blew my mind away. And I thought, why? Of all the things I'd

spent money on up till that point, why hadn't I bought a

really good microphone? And and I probably should have called you up, you know, 2

years before that because you were the first person I met who had, like, a

microphone array in front of them, I think. And, anyway, you're right.

It was a tough decision. We just knew I

had the instincts that's sort of how dad ran his businesses, that

the this industry, the media industry was gonna be

big in terms of what we were doing with podcasting. I didn't know

it, but even back in Glover Park, my clients were

asking and demanding video. My intention in the

beginning, Matthew, as you may know already, was just to do audio.

It was a big enough chore for me to learn audio after 26 years in

in real estate and development, and I thought I was gonna be

perfectly happy running a humble little studio that did audio Podcasting that

just wasn't gonna work. And so as soon

as the client started asking and demanding video, we just fell into

it. So, yes, it was a major investment, mostly on

my part. And we've borrowed a lot of equipment

from ESPN, but most of it, we've, you know, we've plowed

any money we've made back into the investment in the equipment. So

we have, I don't know, half a $1,000,000 worth of

equipment here probably. Well, we'll we'll get a few of those

enlisted, here in the show notes so people can kinda get a sense of Yeah.

What we're talking about and, like, they're usually very complicated names and

numbers and and things that most of us aren't gonna know, but still people are

gonna wanna check it out. We'll have some pictures. One thing you were telling me

about before we get started that I think is interesting for folks who might be

thinking about not just recording, but being able to offer

recording services to other, basically starting a studio. Maybe not to the

same level, but Right. You know, offering it out to other folks was

you're talking about the modular walls

that, you know,

different clients. How did that come about? Well, in the

Glover Park studio, we had built a green wall. We painted a green

wall and found that we really never used it.

There just wasn't a need for it. However, there is some need

for different shows to have a different look. And one of the things I learned

in Glover pa in, Gaithersburg was I

always forgot to take a picture in the very, very beginning, 11 years ago before

you and I met. I'd always forgot to take a picture, which I call the

studio selfie, of me and you doing a podcast

around that original form form round formica table. Before

I ever had any soundproofing, I was collecting egg cartons, to be honest with

you, in a big pile in the corner. I never used them because then I

started buying, off of, what is it, B and H, Mathew,

or or, the other one, Sweetwater. W or, yeah, one of

those big Right. And, and that was the long kind with the

slits, but not like this little pyramid triangle kind you

see before behind me. We've set my office here up as sort of

an Ersatz podcast studio if you needed to to use 1 and our

other ones are used, also because I'm very loud and they wanna soundproof in my

office because my voice carries very far. And I have

animated conversations quite often. So quick

aside on that topic, and in the first book that I mentioned to

you, one of my clients does this to this day. If you can't

afford, soundproofing, speaking about

that just for a moment, do it in your closet. And you can't buy

that that quiet that you get in a walk in closet with, you know, your

clothes and your wife's clothes or whatever you've got in there. And,

Debbie DeChambeau, one of my first friends and clients out in Gaithersburg, she'll she

says she still sets up a card table in her closet when she does her

podcast. Can't do better with the acoustics. You can't buy it.

Right? So the modular system is pretty simple. We have kind of a

a ledge, a debit, you know, all along all the hallways here

at Podville Media, and all of our

vertical, say, 3 feet wide and 8 feet tall

panels hang on those, davits. And

so we have white brick, red brick, distressed

metal, wood, weathered wood, and

green. We can turn any studio and then a type

of panel that also has pegs in it. Local,

adaptive, DC adaptive, Chris Jones developed the

system originally for children's rooms where you could put pegs in

it anywhere just like in an old workbench, and then you can put shelves on

the pegs and you can put other items, and it's a

limitless designing sort of Rube

Goldberg machine where you can create any environment, and then you can

put, you know, MP in in letters on top of 1 shelf on

your logo in 1 or a logo card hanging behind you. I

love mixing, so I often think of it as a high school play or a

college play where we were building sets. And so we're literally

doing, you know, high high audio and high video and

advanced technical stuff as possible, but we're also using sets like we

did in those theatrical productions. Because if you've

got got 40 minutes and I've got someone with a good

back, I can have that whole room change to look completely different, as

I say, red brick, white brick. And the the brick on these panels is

not brick. It's just, you know, a plastic fascia. And,

or, like I say, wood or when I did a golf industry show, it can

look completely green behind me, which is kind of a cool look. And, I think

the Mike O'Meara show, if anybody wants to go on YouTube and look at that,

it's the distressed metal look with 2 sections of

panels, with the peg in it, and, then you can

cover over the peg with a black material, which we've done,

and then, you know, have it shelves that hold sort of the mementos

from, you know, 30 years of that show. Then on the

corner of studio a, we can bring in panels that are

custom built and make it look like a corner of the White House. We do

a a production with the White House Historical Association, so it's everyone

is nonpartisan. It's just about the history of the White House. And we can

make it look it's got the tartan of the White House hanging on one side

and some of the White House plates behind the host Stewart.

So you can give any kind of a different look, but we really

typically don't use green screen or infinity wall or any of those things.

We we like to do it sort of a mix of new and and old,

I guess. It's interesting. I like the idea of

the the not just the modular walls, but also having that kinda, like,

corkboard being able to change out everybody's accessories. Right? We we're

obsessed, especially after, you know, COVID and the Zoom age of what do we have

behind us? What books are we showing? What, you know, what tchotchkes are living on

the shelf behind us? So the fact that every one of your clients who comes

in can get a personalized, customized experience

and really make the show theirs and not just another

Podville, you know, media show No. Is a is a really

great thing that you're offering offering. The only thing digital, and

Passy for power station often uses the Mike O'Meara studio. So they'll

take all their stuff off the shelves. And then behind her

is a large monitor, and we'll just put the show logo up on that. We

used to do that in Glover Park for Santana's show. So we will theme

it out with the digital if you want. But often when we build this and

put the shelves and very, good point, we'll put the books that

that host wants. Maybe the host has written a book or has section of books.

Maybe a, you know, fake plant. We've got a whole lot of stuff if you

walk down the hallway. Just limit, you know, unlimited stuff. We've got r two d

two if you want that. And, then don't forget to

take a picture so you know how to rebuild it if you need to do

it 2 weeks from now. Because if you forget that, you know,

shame on shame on you, because we wanna make it look like it's

been the same. So our clients love the I I appreciate you bringing it

up. Our clients love the shelving systems because they're able to bring

in, and, many clients keep a box of that stuff here, you

know, just in storage so that they can rebuild that or add to

it. My gosh. Angie Goff had so much Dolly Parton paraphernalia,

that it filled up a half a room. So she likes DALL E.

That's awesome. Well, so as a reminder, if you're listening to this, check out podvillmedia.com.

You can get a little glimpse of what we're talking about. We'll have a link

there. Also, while you're checking out the show notes and you're you're interested, check out

the Tao of Podcasting. That's the book that, Charlie wrote recently

released, which also features some of his own drawings, which he is great

at. I I've actually been the subject of a few of his drawings after having,

interviewed him before, and they're always really good. Before we let you go,

a couple of questions that we're trying to ask everybody. And so Sure. You know,

one thing that I wanna know from you is in

the podcasting space in general, whether it's from the listener side, the creator

side, is there any place that you'd like to see improvement? Any

new technologies, new services, you know, something that could make it better for

everyone involved? Wow. What a what a great

question. I'll I'll sort of take it a little sideways because it occurred to

me the just before you finished your question. The the thing

that I like talking about, the thing that I think is

underutilized so far, and one person who I helped when they were

starting out is literally doing this for his own company now. He's

in, legal services, legal informational services. What

I don't see enough of, Mathew, is the inward facing

podcast. By that, I mean, a podcast that's made not

made to be private necessarily, but to made to be

for the company and for communicating inside

a company. Do you know what I mean? I actually had a client who I

I can't say who the client was because it was it was actually proprietary. But,

yeah, it was the HR, arm that came to us and

wanted to produce a podcast, and it was meant just for the employees

there. Talking a lot about DEI and, like, some of the initiatives that they were

doing with, with other employees. Yeah. I I I'm

absolutely fascinated by it and don't know why it's not

happening more. Back when we were renting studios, and we still rent the studio,

depending on the client and and what their needs are. We you know, we'll give

it to you for a couple episodes or a day. We had Uber

come in to our Glover Park studio, and I thought, oh, this is fascinating. Uber's

doing a podcast. Well, it's not for you and me. It was for

inside Uber for translate I mean, translating, for communicating their

ideals and whatever they were worried about, you know, whether it was legal

or or marketing wise or trying to talk to drivers. Now I've never met

a driver who who had heard of the podcast, so I'm not sure which

part of the company it was meant for. But they came and rented our

studio for about 4 hours one day. Yahoo has rented

our studios a couple times. We do a lot of that, but I'm fascinated by

the inward facing podcast. And Ray Ortega, who I mentioned to you earlier,

he worked before he went moved to the West Coast. He lived here in

Maryland and worked for NIH doing a podcast. Now it was

hard to find that podcast. You had to burrow

down on their website, and you had to know which page.

But finally, I found it one day because he gave me the breadcrumbs, and there

were 2 little blue hyperlinks, you know, but it was just really for

the doctors. Understand. Fascinates me. You know that

11 years ago, you and I were saying spend most of our time explaining to

people what this thing they call a podcast is, and I think Cliff

Ravenscraft used to tell a story about that and pointing out what that purple icon

on your on your iPhone was meant to be, and nobody knew what that purple

thing was. Now today, mostly, I say to people, why aren't you podcasting?

Because there's so many good reasons. There's so many different financial levels. You could do

it with your phone if you want. It'll sound like you did it with your

phone. But, but there's so much whether you're and I

came from a commercial real estate background. A lot of times on that

show, I mentioned FIR, they talk about the CEOs behind the door

because CEOs usually come to work and they shut their door. And most of the

people in the company are fascinated and interested in the c I

the CEO, and and sometimes they're sort of an iconic figure

to those people. And I have said to previous bosses, why

don't you do video? Why don't you address your company? Even on

Slack, people don't do video addresses to say thank you, this.

My wife had been very sick. I did a Slack inside our 10 person company,

and I got a thunderous response back because everybody's in those

larger companies. Everybody wants access to the CEO, and you've probably

heard in some groups they've done, hey. Win lunch with the CEO, or

once a month, the CEO has has a, you know, a meet and greet

with people. And I'm like, why aren't these groups doing more

inward facing communications? I just don't

quite understand, maybe you do, why there isn't more of that. I think it's

starting to catch on. But It is starting to catch on. I think the big

is the distribution. Right? The whole joy and the benefit of the podcast is being

able to download, have it on your phone, listen in the car, listen while you're

working, things like that. And when they are private and proprietary,

the platforms are getting much, much better to do that. But, it it is

a expensive and complicated thing sometimes to arrange that.

We we tried to work with a pharmaceutical company, and the level

of security that was required just overcomplicated the

project to such a degree that it it just it wasn't even worth it.

They just wound up recording audio and just putting on the backlink on their, you

know, Internet. Right. So that's that's probably one of the bigger ones.

And I I think also just I don't think people

appreciate how useful it could be. I agree with that. But like you

said, sometimes you put that stuff out in workers like, I didn't even know this

existed. I'm not gonna list it. Right? I'm I'm already on company time, and I'm

on company time. I'm not using non company time to listen to more stuff for

the Right. Well, what is it? Tom Webster calls the media diet,

and, you know, the people who aren't listening to podcasts might not ever start because

they've got other stuff they do. I mean, you have a you have a

very fancy studio. You have a lot of good stuff, but is there any tech

out there that's on your wish list to to improve the

studio or just something you wanna get your hands on or something you wanna see

created, to help you guys up? Well,

we're working with Casted now because the thing that didn't

exist until recently is the right the right numbers, the right feedback.

The reporting which the clients have asked, you're aware of this probably as much

or more so than I. The the feedback, the actual demographics, if you

will, of the podcasting consumption. And, that is something

we've searched and searched for. We've talked about building ourselves, but we're

working with a company called Casted, now c a s t e d, and Lindsey

Chip Lindsay Tjepkema, who post quite regularly about, what

they're doing on LinkedIn. It's absolutely fascinating, and it

is also incorporating AI into

doing really functional data

reporting. That's what we need. What what as an aside, what

I find still the feedback I get, and I don't know if

you know Ariel Nisblad and what is her Sure. You

know, is the collation of how do I find this? Now you and

I know how to find podcasts, Mathew, but a lot of the

feedback that I get from the non listeners is, well, I I'm never

gonna be able to find my food group, my my special interest.

And, you know, you gotta look if you're gonna find it, back to an old,

you know, joke dad told. But the aggregation

of content still seems to be something that's underdone. I think Ariel

does it with what she's accomplishing, and I'd love to meet her

someday and talk to her about what she's doing. But finding those

in your zone of interest, I guess you you gotta

lead the horse to the water, right, because they're not gonna look. You

and I both know, again, how to find those things. It's not really that

hard, but that seems to be a problem. I think it's

interesting to see what Katie Kremitzos has done with her network of

meditation podcasts, and there's there are networks out there now. But

then you've gotta kinda saddle saddle up to the, you know, come up

to the network and jump in. I think, the New York

Times is trying to do that with their audio app. Right? But I still think

there's a lot of growth there, and I don't think it's fully baked yet

because now that we have TikTok, YouTube Shorts,

Instagram, Reels, etcetera, etcetera, how do we blend

all of that together? I can't watch a YouTube short

and necessarily find your show, your audio show. Now if you're

doing a good job as a YouTube producer, you should have all your links there.

Right? But I won't name names, but I've got clients

who I finally trained to make Instagram posts about their show who have

no hyperlink. So we're still at a place where we're not functioning

and giving enough feedback and giving the discoverability.

I think the thing that I need that we're I think we found with this

company is the data that I can share with my clients

because they want that feedback. You know what I'm talking about. They want those

numbers. They wanna be able to use I guess, the right way

is to say, I need data that's actionable so I can

know what kind of a monetization, what kind of content,

what kind of content that I'm putting out there is the most appealing

and the most vital and the most worth my time. Right?

Since day 1, that's been one of the biggest complaints from clients has always been,

you know, how do I get better data? How do I know who's listening? And

interesting about the discoverability, right, it's easy to go to a podcast store and find

Podcasting. Or if you know what you're looking for, type in the name. But right,

I I'm, you know, trying to find a podcast about x, and there's

just 100. It's just like, how do you figure out which is the right one

for you? That's Right. I don't know I don't know how you solve that problem.

I'm sure Right. People are working on it, but I I kinda feel that that

way as well. Well, I do have one more item on this topic,

and, you know, you and I will go let's say we're trying to find out

about, I don't know, some some hobby, basket weaving,

overused hobby item. But then we'll look at those 5 shows

that we've found, and you and I will know to check and

see if they've done episodes recently

or not or if they've pod faded or not. But the other folks who aren't

as deep into this as you and I are don't know that. Right.

They'll listen to a show for fun and listen to one that's

faded, then you're disenchanted with the whole thing. You know? It's like,

screw it. Podcasts are a waste of my time. So that's that's part of

the problem. I've actually changed my title here, Mathew, sort of a joke,

but I call myself the CLO because I try to

listen to as much of our content, if not all of our content, and

then as much exterior content produced by other people. So I call

myself the chief listening officer. The thing, I guess, to also

answer your question that I found, do you remember back, I know you

do, when we used to listen to the radio, we would simply turn the

dial. Right? And there's even audio of dials turning and

tuning into news, tuning into music, tuning into talk shows. Right? It seems

funny to me that when we're listening to a podcast,

we tend to hunker down and listen to that whole podcast

and not turn the dial as much. I have an enormous playlist,

and I would love an app where I could almost turn the radio dial

back and forth from shows. So I'll listen to a show. I've

got 2 former employees who are out doing other shows, and I really

try to listen to them, but I don't really follow basketball. I'm sorry

if everybody's groaning at me. And 1 and Ethan does a show

about the cavaliers, and he's really well done, and I love hearing him. And I'll

listen to it for a few minutes. Maybe I'll learn and start watching basketball and

television, and then I'll sweep through and go to the next one.

So I know Ray Ortega was horrified when I told him that I'd listen at

accelerated speeds. I still do occasionally listen at accelerated

speeds. But I'm trying to tune that radio dial, and I don't

know a functional way of doing that other than just

manually scrolling on that screen, trying to pick a different

show. Because as I say, I'm trying to listen to everything that we produce plus

as much other content as possible so I keep learning. Just like if you are

a chef in a restaurant, you wanna go eat the other guys cooking. Right? And

so I don't think other than what I'm doing, which

is either scrubbing so that I can get to the next show or just

manually going out and in, I don't know that there's a tool so that we

could just tune and sample different shows because that's what we were doing with the

radio. Right? If the WTOP, which is our local news, wasn't talking about

the traffic, I didn't really care about their content. So they do traffic on the

8th. If the, rock and roll station back in the day wasn't playing

Blackwater by the Doobie Brothers, then I was gonna go try to find that somewhere

else. And it seems to me there ought to be a way, in addition

to what Ariel is doing to find other shows and sample other

shows. There was a tool. Didn't you and I talk about this on a

what was that tool called? Sounder or

something. There was a tool with a with one of those vowel

no vowel and then r back in the day that would do

brief, brief parts of audio. I can't

remember what that was. I think you and I did an interview a long, long

time ago, and I might have talked about that, but that died. There was

an interest in it, and there is no way to sort of

quickly go through just like when we're channel surfing,

I guess, is the best analogy, through Podcasting try and find

that one that you know, even Alice and I will do it. My wife's name

is Alice when we're, you know, trying to find a show to watch on Netflix.

We'll just go and look at the trailers. Right? And there's no

way to do that. And I think that is somewhat makes it

exclusionary for the non listener, the ones who are not

listening now. How can I get in? Well, I have to get in, and I

have to subscribe, and I have to listen to a whole 20 minutes or 30

minutes of that show. It seems to me that

it's still a cumbersome process to get orientated to following new

shows. Sorry if I've gone on too long. No. It's alright. So it's almost like

what you're saying is the the podcast store, the Apple Podcasting stores, they're

showing you new and noteworthy ranking shows. Instead of

clicking on it and just getting the latest episode, it should automatically

play a trailer or a snippet or a preview that maybe even the Podcasting

themselves is selected so that people can get a good taste of what they're gonna

be getting. I think that's a, yeah, I think that's a great idea because, you

know, when you hover over that show on Netflix, it starts playing

the movie. Right. Right. Right. It literally plays the

movie until you decide whether to go on or not. That would

be great in podcasting. And and what is it? 50%

of these are videos well now. That would be very interesting.

Would be absolutely fascinating. I think Spotify

is is trying to help with some of these things. My daughter is

24 now. As I told you, my twins are 24 now. She

won't listen to a podcast, and I can't say if it's all of her generation.

But unless it's on Spotify, she's like, dad, I won't listen to it. I've

eliminated the app from the Apple Store, and as long as it's

on Spotify, I will I will take the time to listen to it. But if

it's not, I'm not going to. Well, a lot of people say that about YouTube

as well. Right. Right. Well, we we encourage our

clients to make YouTube shorts. I'm not making any. I'd like to make some about

the book, but I just haven't haven't made the time. But, I mean,

YouTube Shorts are pretty damn darn important right now. Those are being

consumed massively. And I think what sounds profitable,

they talk about, you know, the the matter

that YouTube you can help me out here, Mathew, is one of

the main ways people are finding podcasts now.

Yeah. I mean, YouTube we we always talked about this with clients about wanting to

do video. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google itself.

People just go there to search for stuff. And so if you're not on there,

you are probably invisible to to a lot of your target audience. It's a

huge segment. I don't see that as changing.

So if they can figure out ways to do this this sampling, this changing of

the radio station, or what Netflix is doing with just letting the dang

movie roll while you're hovering, And I remember being

surprised at first. Well, what's going on? And I think it's a great idea,

so I'll give you credit for that. I think in the idea Apple, if you're

listening do that. Yeah. Apple, if you're listening, please,

start start giving us free samples. You you know who I am. Because that's what

we all want. You know? Excellent. Alright. And lastly,

you know, I know you work on a lot of shows. You produce a lot

of shows. Any podcast in particular you're listening to these days, just

the personal joys or, you know, something you recently discovered that,

you think is worth sharing? To so many. I'll always

talk about for immediate release. It took me a month of listening to it before

I understood what they were talking about. I'm now on a weekly phone call

with 1 of the hosts, and it's been a great joy to get to know

him. But that's if you're really interested in in b to b marketing, frankly.

I love marketing and such has been a passion of mine,

although I didn't go to school for it. I just like marketing. When dad and

I were doing work 30 years ago and building brochures, and I I

liken that, you know, that experience to thinking about what podcasts

are today, kind of a audio brochure. So I I tend to

listen in the mornings, Matthew. I don't know if you do to The Daily. One

of our former employees works on The Daily podcast, so I'm very proud of

her. I actually was just visiting town, and I actually saw her for the

first time in 3 years last night. And I tend to like The Daily

because it's short, and I enjoy getting a

little, hopefully, nonpartisan catch up in news that I

probably should be aware of. I've just looked at their app.

I don't know if I'll use it. Maddie was talking to me about it and

and was very complimentary of it. So they've, as you know, they've created an audio

app. I tend to use, as I just mentioned, Spotify a lot.

Someone in the Maryland Podcasting Association, Rob Dallas, does

a show called Pocket Sized Pep Talks. Now you're not gonna

like any all episodes from any one podcaster. Right, Mathew?

But he does something that I appreciate as someone who listens to a great many

podcasts. He often does short format. So to

answer your question right now, because I'm consuming so much,

I occasionally really like a Podcasting who does something that's

under 15 minutes long. I really appreciate it. And I

think sounds profitable generally fits that length. So I would

I would also answer sounds profitable because I that's a daily.

It's often less than 15 minutes long, not always.

And, occasionally, I'll be listening to it and say, wait a

minute, and go back. There was one before Christmas, and I had to listen to

it three times because I was like, he really hit the nail on the head

for me on that one. So I'm interested in industry

news, but I'm also interested in storytelling. My friend

Steven Hart is a voice on What's Poppin' Penny, which is like the electric

company or Sesame Street Podcasting for kids, and I think it's

absolutely delightful. You just get transported

into this sweet young girl's fantasy world and, you

know, still like fantasy and science fiction and, getting

away from the daily grind. So I try to listen to a lot of formats.

I'd recommend, if if anyone out there is listening to have young kids, to check

out What's Poppin' Passy. I like The Daily, and I and for industry

folks, I really do think Sounds Profitable is a must listen.

Stupendous listening. I'll definitely check out that, one for the kids, see if they're interested.

We've we've tried a couple of podcasts with them, and it's give or take. You

know? When you have twins, it's, trying to find something they both like is really

tough. Well, we Well, we both understand that.

We have had the joy and pleasure of chatting with Charlie Birney. He is

the co-founder and CLO. That's chief listening officer at Podville

Media. You can find them at podvillemedia.com and the author of Tao

of Podcasting. We'll have a link to that so you can pick it up and

check it out. Charlie, it has been a pleasure as always. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Mathew. It's been a pleasure to see you again.