Questions We Don't Know The Answers To

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Podcasting ain't what it used to be. Today. There's a lot more pressure. Pressure to be on every platform to do video pressure, to pump out those shorts, while still making something that actually matters to listeners. Rhys waters knows it all too well. Podcasting came a little easier to him after more than a decade of making award winning TV and radio for the BBC in Wales, before he moved to Halifax and co founded pod starter, that's a company that helps brands launch their shows at pod starter. They don't chase mass downloads. They chase results. In fact, one of his clients wanted just 12 listeners and generated over $5 million from a single episode. We're going to talk to him today about why audio still has to come first in a video obsessed world, how short form clips drive discovery, and what he's learning from building the echo Summit. That's the East Coast podcast Conference coming this June, and we're going to talk about how his dyslexic ADHD brain became a superpower in production. And now Reese waters joins me from Halifax, Nova Scotia Rhys, I can't help but notice that you have an accent. Yet you're based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Where did you come from? And how did you get over here?

Rhys Waters  1:27  
This is an iconic Cape brown accent. I don't know what you're talking about. So originally, I spent the first 33 years of my life in South Wales, in the UK, and I moved to Halifax eight years ago in 2018 for a mixture of reasons, I was kind of like it was the end of a chapter for me. I was kind of burnt out with a TV career that was fantastic. I achieved everything I ever wanted by the time I got my early 30s, and then I kind of was missing spending time with my kids and my wife, and we just needed rebalance. And came to heart with PR, we could live anywhere in Canada, and we just really like the vibe of Halifax, coming from, like, a Celtic part of Europe, the vibe was still very Celtic. You're very like blue collar, very down to earth, friendly people, and have not regretted it since.

Matt Cundill  2:15  
Massive thumbs up to choosing Halifax. A lot of people come to Canada, they look at Montreal and go, Wow, not sure I want my kids educated in French, necessarily. They look at Toronto, see the prices. They look at Vancouver, see the mountains, and from there they, you know, they make decisions as needed. And Halifax is rarely at the top of that list. So, but you chose well,

Rhys Waters  2:34  
it was before the pandemic as well, as well. So property, it was just an absolute steal at the time too. You could get for the equivalent of a typically pretty boring, small, you know, British Home in a built up area, not necessarily in a great area. You could get absolute mansion on a forested plot that was like 30 minutes from downtown. So it was very much. So we realized we could build an incredible lifestyle without being rich. And I know it's changed a lot since then, the prices have gone up. It's kind of rebalanced, but we were very lucky to come in and kind of build a life here before everything kind of shot up in price really.

Matt Cundill  3:09  
How did your broadcast career start?

Rhys Waters  3:11  
So in the UK, you can leave school at 16, you do your GCSEs, and you can leave school at 16, and then typically, you go on to either a sixth form or a college to do a levels, they're called, and then you go to college after that, or university after that. And I kind of, I really struggled. I'm neurodivergent. I've got a combination of ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, so I've always kind of struggled. As I was going through adolescence, traditional classroom and academics weren't there for me. And I managed to get my myself enrolled in a full time art course, and just got to create. I was always drawing and painting as a kid, and just got to try sculpture and ceramics and photography and film. Really got into into film and photography specifically. And then with my kind of when I left there, I managed to get on a very prestigious documentary film course at a university that doesn't really exist anymore. The course doesn't exist. It was founded by John Grierson, the the documentary filmmaker who's got strong links to Canada as well. And they only took about a dozen students on a year. So I was really lucky to get in and learn from people who were very accomplished, kind of BAFTA winning, producers and directors. And when I was 19, my first year, a BBC producer came in and was like, we don't have a lot of money, but we're doing these PSAs about binge drinking in the UK and the problem there. So I want students to make some cool films. If they're good, they're going to go on TV. We'll pay you, like, a nominal 60 pound broadcast license fee, but it'll be your first broadcast. So I got a camcorder and I filmed this. Used to happen in the UK, where all the pubs and clubs closed at the same time. It was called kick out, and it was always just an absolute disaster.

Matt Cundill  4:51  
11pm

Rhys Waters  4:52  
Yeah. So everyone was just falling over, throwing up, fighting, being arrested, so I kind of like hid in the back of my car. And I filmed it, and then constructed like a nature documentary based on on their behavior. And then it became, like a 32nd kind of and it got on TV, and it kind of really got my foot in the door. And then my graduation film I was I built really good connections, and just took every opportunity as a runner or a volunteer on shoots to kind of gain experience. And then it's kind of snowballed. I started kind of working with the BBC initially, in house when I first graduated, didn't like it. It's a stuffy British institution, and it didn't fit my weird brain. So then as an independent producer, I produced my first TV show for BBC Wales, a regional part of the BBC when I was like 24 and then it got picked up nationally by BBC Two. And just from there, I had like, 12 years of just TV and production and what, got my own BAFTA as well, which was amazing and kind of then also experimented with BBC Radio and BBC podcasting too. So how does one survive the BBC I don't know. It's changed a lot in the last eight years since I left, but it's funny, because it's a wonderful thing, you know, the fact that there's so much money to be made and that they spend money in all of the regions of the country. Obviously, it's heavily centered in London, but they do have to, by mandate, spend money and produce programs all across the country. So there's lots of opportunities for people to learn and grow. But also there's, you know, there is that stuffy culture and the BBC, because they are publicly funded, have to take themselves very seriously, and sometimes that can make it very difficult to innovate or, you know, try things out. But most British people love the BBC, and I'm really grateful the opportunities I had. No institution is perfect by any means, but I cannot complain about the path that I had, and the fact that people, people, they really did invest in myself and my business part of the time when we were creating shows, and we were very lucky to kind of have those opportunities. So I would say that being creative and also having a lot of patience was key. And trying to understand building good relationships with people was always essential. And if you get good ratings if your shows do well, it's much easier to kind of get another show or get people to listen to you if it performs well.

Matt Cundill  7:08  
So you're in Wales, and for those who you know, all you have to do is just watch a little bit of international soccer, and you'll know that Wales has its own football team. You know, someone independent got its own flag, and so the BBC, would it be viewed as something from away, the same way that you're in Halifax now, and people talk about things from being from away, it feels a little bit more cohesive in the UK, the relationship between, like, Wales and the BBC, or maybe, you know, up in Middlesboro, or it feels together,

Rhys Waters  7:38  
yeah. So, so they would have a very distinct set of programs that they would produce, like, specific to the region. They had, like, a large they moved a few years ago, but they had this big building in the capital in Cardiff, where, you know, they they had a lot of shows being produced. You know, they would cover sport locally. You know, it was all people from that region creating shows, as well as in accompaniment to the kind of national stuff also, as well. In Wales, you've got s for C, which is the Welsh language channel that collaborated, but it was funded by the government, but it was kind of collaborated with the BBC a lot. And it's kind of interwoven. The BBC is interwoven. They do have small field offices in other communities too. So I do feel like the reach and the kind of how it's intertwined with everyday, everyday life and smaller communities is there. By far it's it's within touching distance. There's always a building nearby with BBC that you can get a go and see, and is tangibly there. And also things like Doctor Who was being shot in Wales. Death Valley is another one that is a big, big British show that is all shot in Wales. They did spend money filming and producing all different types of content there too. So do

Matt Cundill  8:45  
you know any Welsh?

Rhys Waters  8:46  
Oh no, my great grandfather didn't never learned English, and he lived in Wales and the UK his entire life. And then my grandmother used to get beaten at school for speaking Welsh. And I'm part of that generation. My mother didn't learn Welsh, and I didn't learn Welsh. And so I'm part of the generation where we were kind of cut off from kind of the language of, you know, the place we're from, really, I really struggle with languages, like I've never been able to pick it up. You pick up a few words and things, but it's a very difficult language to learn from. From, my opinion, what I've tried is very difficult. It's so such an ancient language, it's very hard to kind of how you kind of describe the world is very different, but people love the language, and people are fighting to kind of keep it going. And it's one of the positive you know, for a minority language is actually thriving in comparison to many others. There's a lot of the younger generation picking it up. So I'd say it's probably one of the most successful languages in terms of its turnaround historically and making a comeback. So

Matt Cundill  9:45  
did you have any podcast experience before you came to Canada? What did you work on? What did you make?

Rhys Waters  9:51  
So my podcast experience started from radio shows. So the BBC had this really cool thing. I don't know if they still do it. I'm so out of the loop, but they used to. Do was, if there was a radio show, we would go out as a podcast on BBC, on like iTunes at the time, 30 days and I worked on a radio show called the unexplainers. It was a Comedy Mystery road trip improvised show with two really talented people, Mike mubbins, who is now a superstar in the UK, he has like a sitcom and like one of the biggest sports shows, and also a guy called Eggsy, who was part of this legendary comedy rap group that kind of was still, they still tall, but they were a huge hit, a few huge hits in the UK in the early 2000s and we made that show, and it was kind of very different. It was in the real world. We're meeting people. And it went out on the radio, and which, which, you know, it seemed, seemed to do okay on the radio, but it absolutely exploded as a podcast in those 30 days in the UK, in the US, and it blew my mind. So from then onwards, we were, kind of, I was really hooked, because we built this brand, suddenly, this this show that was kind of had had huge reach, and it sounded so different from other podcasts because we had the luxury of a BBC Radio budget to produce it. So that was kind of what got me hooked on podcasting, and from there onwards. So this is about 2015 so this was, like over 10 years ago, and being on the front page of iTunes with that show, you know, relatively the kind of the start of the dawn of the area we're in now, I felt really lucky to be part of that and to kind of get bitten so early on by the bug, really.

Matt Cundill  11:25  
So was it a form of catch up radio, or was it, did it appear in podcast versus then go to Radio?

Rhys Waters  11:31  
It would go on the radio and then it would be presented as a podcast separately,

Matt Cundill  11:35  
catch up radio,

Rhys Waters  11:37  
yeah, yeah. So yeah, but it was kind of what we did, then we agreed with the BBC that we could put it out more permanently. So it wasn't just the 30 days, because we were like, wow, people are really into this, but it's vanished after a month. So we were able to negotiate with them to say we don't care about the rights from our end. We'd just rather exist and be out there for people to consume. So yeah, that's what we did. It eventually became we did a live comedy version, a live show at a comedy festival with it, which was really big success. It was packed, and we also it got turned into a TV show as well. So it was a kind of became this kind of vehicle that we created that was slightly unstoppable, but it was amazing to kind of see that there was this format that could reach globally and be so accessible to people, it kind of blew my mind, because I'd always been thinking regionally or nationally in terms of the content I was producing up until that point.

Matt Cundill  12:30  
Your company is called pod starter, and did you know that you'd be starting this company when you got to Halifax? Was that part of the plans? Or did you think that up after you got to Halifax?

Matt Cundill  12:40  
Do

Rhys Waters  12:41  
you know what? Honestly, when I came here, I was ready to, like, totally change my career, but I didn't. I was kind of like, I don't know what I want to do. You know, as long as I could pay the mortgage, my priority was like, How do I spend more time with my kids and my wife and, you know, have a better balance in life. But I definitely realized that I don't think I can do anything else. I love this. I love kind of creative production. I've always loved creating things that people react to emotionally. For me, that's always it is that you've got to make content or shows or whatever podcasts that people are laughing at or they're interested at, or I don't want to make people angry, but maybe they get angry sometimes, but that's good, you know, I don't like it when I make something and the reaction is passive. I think is so important to kind of engage people. And I really missed that, and kind of got into this. And Jonathan burns, my business partner, we were just introduced by somebody, and we were kind of like having a walk and a chat on the Halifax waterfront, and we were talking about a bunch of other potential opportunities to work together, or maybe business opportunities we could kind of work together on. And in the last five minutes, we started talking about podcasting, and we were like, oh my god, we should just spoke about this the whole time. So pretty rapidly, we kind of launched the company, because we could see that there was things were changing. Things were evolving. John's experience or mine's mine experience. We could bring something different to this kind of early marketplace that was growing here, and early kind of podcast phenomenon that was was snowballing. And, you know, at that stage, most of the time we were people were asking, what is a podcast? How do I listen to one?

Matt Cundill  14:14  
What time is it on?

Rhys Waters  14:16  
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Obviously, that's totally changed. We don't get those questions anymore, which is fantastic, but it was but it was very much, you know, that was, that was the Eru we were setting up.

Matt Cundill  14:28  
Yeah, we have the opposite problem. Now, it's like, I wanted to listen to your podcast, but I couldn't find it. I said, Well, where'd you look on YouTube? Well, this podcast isn't on YouTube, right? So now everyone's sort of kind of nudged to have to find their way on there,

Rhys Waters  14:41  
or even Netflix now as well.

Matt Cundill  14:45  
Oh, yeah, so true. Who was your first client?

Rhys Waters  14:50  
Who was our first client? Oh, wow, we have. We had a couple of clients who were very it came to us very early. It was a consultancy firm, and at the time, we still didn't, we didn't have. Like a we were testing out what our business model was, and we were looking at a portable studio where we would go into people's spaces, set up and record, and we kind of tested that with them and did that, but we quite rapidly realized that we wanted to build a more controlled space and kind of allow people to come in and have somewhere where they can switch off, not be in their kind of their environment where there are distractions, uncontrolled, noise, light, all these other things going on. So that was our first kind. But our first major client was the brand charm diamond centers, the National jewelry chain. We continue to work with them today on a show called ring on it, but we the first show was called Canadian love map, and it was a pitch we gave them at the beginning of the pandemic about, you know, their stores were closing like the conversation with with customers was changing. So we were we basically pitched just telling love stories and to remind people that there is connection and when everyone's at home. And we did 10 seasons with them, which is incredible. So that was kind of our first major client, and our first kind of execution of like a branded podcast back in would have been, yeah, 2020, 2021, when we kind of managed to get that off the ground

Matt Cundill  16:08  
about the pandemic, was there a large take off of clients who came in just because of the pandemic?

Rhys Waters  16:15  
Yes, yeah. I think for us, it was panic time at first, because we just signed the lease on a studio, and nobody could come to but at the same time, everyone was fundamentally rethinking their communications and marketing, and that allowed us to kind of go in and present something totally different. And with remote tools like this, recording tools, you know, it enabled us an opportunity to kind of break through and and kind of get people, people are in an experimental kind of state of mind at the time. So it really was a incredibly useful moment in time, despite the horror everything that came with it, from a business point of view, what was scary at the time ended up being a real kind of catalyst in terms of our journey. So

Matt Cundill  17:03  
how do the clients measure success? And do you have to offer therapy for them every once in a while?

Rhys Waters  17:08  
So I like to define success in a way where we always ask clients at the beginning, what does success look like. But we once had a client who only wanted 12 people to listen to their podcast. There were 12 very specific people This podcast was tailored towards. And from that one episode, they generated over $5 million in revenue. So I would argue that I was one of the most successful projects we ever did, even though it was a minute audience. So how you execute a podcast and why you're delivering a podcast. You know, success isn't downloads, consumption, rate chart placement for every client, it depends entirely on the purpose for that podcast and what it's supposed to do for them. So all of our success metrics can be pretty unique to each client, because the very few clients, or no clients, are trying to get a mass audience. It's very focused, very kind of targeted. We know who this show is for. We know why we've built it this way and built it for them. So we're able to measure the demographics much more specifically and the uptake more specifically. And it might be 12, 200 1000 10,000 people who actually this is relevant to, and that is always, always for us, is success is not defined in, in how it might look across kind of more mainstream platforms and larger shows, we like to be kind of laser focused on, on what the client's needs are, and very specific success terms in, in that sense. So, so

Matt Cundill  18:41  
when you're having that initial conversation with the clients, what is something that you often have to say, we need to avoid that. We need to do more of this.

Rhys Waters  18:52  
Often it's, I'm a big fan of experimentation, of not just putting the first thing out that you you create. You know, coming in, we do a process where people come into the studio and we just, it's like chemistry testing. It's kind of like, what is this show? Who are you, you know, who should be the voices in this? And you kind of need to do that, because often people come into making a podcast as a client, and they they've got a bunch of favorite shows, and there's things they love about those shows. So they're like, Oh, can we do this? And this show does that. And by all means, we can potentially, like, create those things, but it's got to stay on track with a purpose. You know, if you're, if you're kind of proposing elements and aspects from, like, a comedy show, and this is a very sensitive kind of topic with, like, really touching issues and human stories. We have to be very careful about, you know, how we kind of shape it. So I feel like there's a real process of like, I know, I suppose the word today is vibe. What's the vibe for this show? Because if you want people to listen to it, they need to kind of identify with the tone and the style and feel like it's resonating with them and they're comfortable and how. Happy, and the kind of leaning into the voice and the personality that's talking and nailing that is kind of a recall. You can choose camera angles and microphones and lights and things, but this is kind of a almost intangible human aspect that you kind of need to nail in those early stages, just so people can can listen and go, Oh, this feels good. This feels right. I I want to hear more I'm comfortable than I feel welcome. So I think that that is a really important part of the process for us, and a part where we can weed out things that maybe don't fit or could work against, kind of connecting with the right audience.

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Matt Cundill  21:08  
we've had too much talk about video in podcasting, and I think should you have video for your podcast? It's like, yes, if you can, but for you and your clients now, I'm sure there's a video offering, and I think we know that bad audio is going to just kill your podcast. So how do you separate the two, especially with people who are not media savvy, to say, okay, the camera's here. The camera's nice. You can speak to the camera, but please stay on mic. Like, how can you sort of profess to people that this is still audio first, often, and maybe it's not, maybe some of your clients just want

Rhys Waters  21:40  
video. Yeah, so we've always done we've recorded video for years now, like the entire podcast as video, but often we weren't doing full video as deliverable. It was just for the clips and the promotion and everything. You know, it's incredibly valuable to kind of increase your visibility, where people are comfortable. And you know, some clients don't even care. They want the content for radio aspects or for for their content kind of strategy. And I think that personally, I I don't ever I consume podcast video content in those short clips. I never watch video podcasts in their entirety, but there are people who do. And if we want to be accessible, I think there is an element of making it available to people on the platform they feel comfortable they want to consume on. There's potentially a missed opportunity not to it's very it's a lot of pressure to create video on top of the audio. They're almost like two very different things. I feel like what you can do with pure audio and where you can spend your time and money to make like a fantastic audio experience. You know, the video is going to take a lot more investment to match that kind of level often, and the video is a lot of people don't want to pay for video. They want it as a requirement, but they don't necessarily want to pay for multicam setup and all this kind of thing that they want. So we try and find a happy medium with clients, where we acknowledge that video is a thing, that is a requirement, but we also acknowledge that they don't want to spend like, four times the money to kind of pull it off. So we've built a studio with which is, like, pre rigged. We've got, like, a really good workflow where we can do the best we can with the audio, and then we can give a video deliverable that is high quality and as polished as possible, but doesn't break the bank, where we've hired multiple video operators and, you know, all those kind of things that sometimes come into it. Also, video is doing weird things to the industry. There are kind of audio, traditional audio producers who are being pressured into suddenly grabbing cameras and trying to video podcasts and and there are like, video production companies who are just, you know, be able to frame these beautiful, well lit kind of podcast setups, but the audio quality is terrible, and they don't understand the platforms, like, they don't understand like the audio, just the pure audio side of it. So, you know, there's, there's a there's a lot going on, there's a lot in flux because of that influence. But I kind of feel like as long as you kind of really focused on the story and the creative approach, and is it right for that audience? Is it the best thing for your client and the goals of this project? How is the video going to play a key part in terms of making sure you kind of set some KPIs and kind of achieve them, or, you know, is it going to give them the return on investment they want having their honest conversation and go, Well, if you're gonna pay for this video, is that going to get you to the place you want to go? So I think it can be very nuanced and very specific to the client. And we are being flooded with tons of, you know, just sit in front of the camera, hit record. You know, most people won't watch. We've got to, you know, it's definitely wanted to be selective about about kind of how we present our clients and how we're using that video. In that sense.

Matt Cundill  24:47  
I'm always asking people like, how do you consume this? So you've already partied with a couple pieces of information I found interesting. One of them was you said you've seen this show, but you've seen him in the clips and in the you. Probably the YouTube shorts or the Instagram reels that we're putting out. And listen. There's a lot of podcasts I consume that way. You mentioned that your other video experiences are like that too, where you consume the shorts, but would you actively go for the shorts? Are they just being served to you through an algorithm?

Rhys Waters  25:15  
No, I do follow some podcasts that I've never listened to, but I just enjoy the shorts.

Matt Cundill  25:21  
Yeah, I'm a fan of a number of shows like that.

Rhys Waters  25:24  
Yeah, and there's some podcasts that have had huge success on Tiktok, but very little success on their RSS feed. And I think that's just, that's just, you know, to me, that's fine. They've still found an audience. They're still creating something that people enjoy and want. It just doesn't fit the traditional mold of what a podcast is, or, you know, it's podcast inspired, certainly, but it's not necessarily the lead thing they're going with. But, yeah, I think, I think that it's part of the fabric of the content we consume now, video podcast clips, and I think I probably watch a lot of comedy podcast clips, but I don't listen to as many comedy podcasts. I'm usually listening to news or history shows or those kind of things. If it's long form, I tend to lean into things I find a mixture of, like, entertaining and educational. But I certainly love the clips of comedy shows because I can consume them in the kind of like, I can just consume the best bits, the best jokes and things in that kind of format. Really,

Matt Cundill  26:21  
can you believe how the world worked out for you? Here's a dyslexic guy who's, you know, painted as dyslexic, and now all of a sudden, here we are in the 2020s and everything is short form, short form, short form, and built for you. Now is your time,

Rhys Waters  26:37  
I know. And like, AI tools as well, like, I can sound smart and I want my emails is great. So it's like, it's, there's a huge like opportunity. I think I love creating long form content, like a lot of the shows I used to prove so the BBC were like 30 minutes. It did some like, 60 minute shows. And I love the long journey. But I feel like trying to, like, also tell a story in a very short space of time or convey something meaningful in a short space of time is also a fun challenge. I feel like I like I like doing both, but I like to consume both. I'm not worried about like, the amount of short form content that my kids are watching, because we'll sit down and watch a movie together, and they'll watch the whole thing and love it and appreciate it for the same in exactly the same way I would. Short form content can be addictive and can be consumed very quickly, but I kind of like it because it helps me filter through and find new things in a really efficient way that I've never had in my life. And it certainly does fit my ADHD as well. I can get on my quick dopamine hits.

Matt Cundill  27:39  
I mean, I go to podcast conferences, and I feel it is an ADHD conference at times with half the people that I speak to. There's the business side, and they're all focused and serious, and know what to do about, you know, making the money, or, you know, how we're going to distribute this, or the deals we're going to make. And then there's the creative side, and, like, it's all these, like, sort of Darty eyes with ADHD people,

Matt Cundill  27:58  
you

Rhys Waters  27:58  
know, like

Matt Cundill  27:59  
myself, just all getting together. And I thought this question is really because you've identified this as being something that you that you've identified early in life. Tell me about dyslexic thinking and how you know you decided to do more of one thing and less of another. When I say less of another, it's like, you know, learning another language that's tough for people with ADHD.

Rhys Waters  28:18  
Oh yeah, my short term memory is awful, like trying to retain, like, phrases and things and repeat them. I'm just like, is it is impossible for me when I've tried to do languages, honestly, in a way, is like the Dyslexic thinking is fascinating to me, because it's almost like you, you do, you approach problems from a different angle. I think is the key thing. So often that's really helpful. But for me specifically, I'll give you an example for me, communicating in words was always a huge weak point for me, but communicating in terms of audio, images, video is kind of entirely where I feel fully fluent, I guess, as a person. So for instance, if I went to a shoot, like, say, when I was making a TV show, would shoot for the day, record everything. I would take all the footage, and I would remember a lot of what happened in terms of, like, the moments and the emotions and the scenes, not necessarily the words, but the visuals and everything would be in my head. I would wake up the next day and I would have a rough edit in my head. It kind of processed in my head overnight, and then I would just sit there and assemble it based on what was in my brain. And those kind of skills that kind of working in this medium. It's super helpful, because I'm able to really work in a way where I feel like I can share things that are important, communicate things, but it's kind of outside of, like that traditional written word. It's much more in terms of, like rich media, and that's that's been a big strength, in the end, kind of, like propelled me through this career and kept me going, but it was also my passion for it is the fact that I found a place I can do that, because it can be immensely frustrating for people. People who are unable to find an outlet or a way where they can fully realize what they feel they're able to share or communicate fluently because you don't fit the mold, you've kind of got to build your own, I guess so. And if you can make that work and make a career out of it, I feel like it's you're incredibly lucky, and I do feel lucky that I found that path. So

Matt Cundill  30:21  
speaking of podcast conferences, you started one out east, and I think was last year the first one.

Rhys Waters  30:28  
So last year was our first one. It was never done an event before or a conference, a cast Canada, their team is fantastic, and they said to us for years, we want to do an East Coast event. If you put one on, we'll sponsor you. And they kind of, then, for years, they'd say that, and I'm going, yeah, we'll do one day. We'll do one day. And then Heather came to me and was like, This is my last time I'm asking do this this year. I'll put her in my budget that will sponsor you. So with that support, we were like, Okay, great. We've got one sponsor from an amazing global podcasting brand. So from there, we kind of launched echo, but I wanted to do something different. I know that a lot of podcast conferences cover many different topics, but I thought it'd be really interesting to do something with this one room and one consistent theme through the whole day, and to bring multiple perspectives on that theme. So our first year was just after the US election, where podcasts played kind of a, the biggest role they've ever played in an election before. And the theme we went for was trust. You know, because podcast hosts earn a lot of trust from listeners through the kind of the time spent, the parasocial relationship you build. You know, the host trade ads are incredibly kind of lucrative because they're effective, they work. So it was kind of leaning into trust and how podcasting plays a big role in terms of earning trust compared to other mediums of our age, such as news or radio or social media. And it was a big success. It was a very small event. It was in the basement, kind of theater in the art gallery in Nova Scotia, but it went really well. Amazon Music threw a party as well with us. And this year is on June the 18th, we've graduated up to the convention center in Halifax, so we've got a slightly bigger space with capacity for a little bit more. And this year's theme is community. So how people are building communities with podcasting and and how communities grow across different platforms, and how that kind of drives and informs and compels podcasters to produce in a particular way. So we've got a really amazing lineup of speakers, from acas, from YouTube, from Canadaland, from AMI, all come in to just do a full day pact on that theme. Alongside that, we also have a digital anthropologist who came last year and gave a really interesting talk about the kind of campfire scenario and how it kind of hacks our, our brain as cavemen in terms of, like, telling stories and communicating with, with, with the spoken word. And he's coming back to talk about the community aspect and community building too. So, yeah, that's kind of the unstoppable wagon of echo year two.

Matt Cundill  33:02  
That's excellent. Heather Gordon, you mentioned Heather by name. She's the managing director at a cast and Yale Strasbourg, they'll both be there. Amongst others, you're wearing the a cast shirt today. It's got the letter A on it. You know, the minute the camera comes on, I go. I wonder if that's Acadia University. No, it's not Acadia University. I wonder if that's Mount Allison up in New Brunswick? No, no. It's not that. It's a for a cast. And by the way, I mentioned universities, you have a student rate as well, because Halifax, of course, has like, four or five universities

Matt Cundill  33:30  
and

Matt Cundill  33:30  
schools around there. I know it's June and students are let out, but still, it's a huge university town, and there's a university

Matt Cundill  33:36  
rate.

Rhys Waters  33:37  
Yeah. And last year, last year, we kind of got it wrong with our pricing. It was a bit too much. So we were kind of really adapted our pricing this year to make sure it was accessible to people. And we do have a good relationship with the community college. Year, they have an incredible radio journalism program, Radio TV and journalism

Matt Cundill  33:56  
program. Is that Nova Scotia, community college,

Rhys Waters  33:58  
NSCC, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely well aware of the great job that they do there, and some of their students are actually volunteering at the event. Ami has given tickets to people locally who are content creators who have disabilities so they can attend. Amazon Music has given some tickets away as well locally to people who are kind of early in their podcast journey. So we're trying to make sure there's accessible. We didn't want it to be like a there are gonna be a lot of industry people here, but we wanted to make sure that was inclusive of people who maybe don't get the opportunity to go to Toronto or, you know, to Vegas, to these kind of podcast festivals. So

Matt Cundill  34:35  
you

Matt Cundill  34:36  
can go to Vegas, if you like, for your podcast festival. But I can tell you, you have somebody from YouTube coming to yours, and they don't necessarily have one going to theirs. So exactly, Alex Patterson is scheduled to be at the conference from YouTube. And anytime, you know, even if you're just a YouTuber, just getting access to to you know, his his knowledge is incredible,

Rhys Waters  34:56  
yeah, and I think it's fascinating. I'm so grateful he agreed to come. Because I feel like for him to talk about, as people talk about video and YouTube, like, how does that community grow differently from when you grow a community on an RSS feed? I myself, personally have the experience of growing a really cool, vibrant community around a podcast in Canada that is entirely based off the RSS feed, and then trying to then recreate that on YouTube has been really like, it's quite difficult, so we're kind of slowly making ground there. But selfishly, was like, Well, I hope he comes, because I can look some things through about how podcast communities are built on YouTube and the success they've seen, or the kind of the things he can share. So I feel like there's a lot of it is incredible to have someone like that come into Halifax to kind of share that insight.

Matt Cundill  35:42  
Yeah, kind of

Matt Cundill  35:43  
share that insight. Reese, thanks so much for joining us on the sound off podcast. Appreciate your time today, and look forward

Matt Cundill  35:48  
to seeing you

Rhys Waters  35:48  
in June. Yay. Thank you. Look forward to seeing you too.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  35:56  
Another sound off media company podcast.

Matt Cundill  35:59  
You

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