Jay Nachlis: How Podcasts Create Connection and Combat Listener Loneliness

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Sound Off podcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:09  
Jay Nachlis from Coleman Insights joins me on the show today. We're going to talk about, well, what we talked about in New York City at Podcast Movement, community and connection, and what the research can tell us about loneliness and the relationships listeners build with podcast hosts. We're also going to get into some radio lessons for podcasters, the rise of video and smart TVs, and the challenges of finding shows across an increasingly fragmented streaming planet, and how tools like Pod Predictor, which is offered up by Coleman Insights, or very simply a podcast trailer can help creators launch with a clear focus. And by the way, if you'd like to see our appearance at Podcast Movement, we were joined by Sarah Burke from the Women in Media Podcast Network and Peter Bakowski from Locked On Packers. I posted it on the episode page@soundoppodcast.com. And now Jane Nacos joins me from the home of the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, Raleigh, North Carolina. Yes, Jay made me say that. I don't even have a first question set up. I just made a bunch of notes.

Jay Nachlis  1:14  
Fair enough.

Matt Cundill  1:15  
Why did Coleman Insights want to get involved and do a mental health study that focused on Americans and and how they were feeling.

Jay Nachlis  1:24  
I have to give the credit to that to Locked On Podcast Network. The guy who founded Locked On is David Locke, and it was his idea that and hypothesis that there may be a connection between podcast usage and connection and community, and that it would be really interesting to do some research. And so Carl Weinstein and I started having some conversations about this, and that's how it ended up being part of podcast movement. So, and of course, I loved the idea of doing something like that. Anytime we can explore something new, that's going to be fun for me. I

Matt Cundill  2:05  
don't want to say it was horrifying, but it is pretty horrifying that maybe there's not been enough study done in this area, just on an overall basis. But one of the things that you uncovered was that nearly one in five Americans reports having no close friends.

Jay Nachlis  2:21  
It's troubling, right? And that's the the the trend line of that. It's what's really upsetting the most, I think, because you go back to 1990 and those statistics. It was 3% were was the number of Americans that reported having no close friends, and like you said, now it's 17. That was from two years ago, actually, and so it's probably even higher than that now. Don't want you to speculate too much, but go ahead. Do you think it's because of everything is available online? So, for instance, my son said something at one point. Well, I've got these friends, and I'm like, well, who are they? Well, I'm gaming with them, and they're from Oklahoma. I go, okay, those are not friends. I love that too. This research, we we did try to find throughlines between digital media usage, and I'm not talking about podcasting. I mean, we looked at social media, and we actually asked about a lot of different types of media usage, and we did try to find some throughlines to answer that question, and you couldn't really find that in the numbers. But anecdotally, to what you're talking about, if I were to hypothesize, I do think that there is a huge difference between that connection online and IRL, as the kids would say, I think that there's no replacement for that, and yes, that I think is a is the gap that we're missing.

Matt Cundill  3:46  
So, what does all this have to do with podcasting?

Jay Nachlis  3:49  
So, what we did find in podcasting is that there was a pretty remarkable correlation between podcast usage. So, you know, we measure that in daily, weekly, and monthly usage of podcasts, and this feeling that that podcasts provide deep amounts of connection. You're likely to say that a podcast host feels like a friend. Or one of the statements that I thought was like super interesting was that podcasting keeps you company essentially as a replacement for a friend, right? When you're feeling alone, which is a deep statement, and the more you use podcasting, the more you felt that way. You're also more likely to take a community action, like fund the podcast or go to a live show, and you're more likely to do other social things, so there was a clear through line there. And I want to be clear about one thing: is that there is that difference between correlation and causation. I'm not saying that podcasting cures loneliness; we can't prove that, but we can show that there is a clear connection between podcast usage and the more connected that.

Matt Cundill  5:01  
I think one of the things about podcasting over the years is one of the knocks on it is the inability to communicate between the podcaster and the podcast listener. If you're on Apple Podcasts, I guess I'll leave a review. If you don't have a website, and you should have a website, there's a bit of a barrier there. The nice thing about YouTube is you can leave some comments, but it's it's tough to create that connection between podcast host and podcast listener.

Jay Nachlis  5:31  
It's very tough.

Matt Cundill  5:31  
Is that changing? You think?

Jay Nachlis  5:33  
Well, there's more tools. And when you talked in that session that we did at Podcast Movement in New York, you know, I thought there were just some great ideas and really interesting anecdotes of ways that that you guys are as creators doing that and and empowering creators to do that. One of the the things that came up, Peter from Locked On Packers and and you both talked about Discord, right? And we kind of joked about the fact that Discord is is for nerds, right? But the reality is, like the way you talked about using Discord to find people that are just interested in almost anything is quite remarkable. I'm not on Discord, but to hear you talk about that really made me intrigued about it.

Matt Cundill  6:19  
Yeah. So rich is in the niches, we talk about that when we talk about money, but we also need to do it with listeners. Again, we haven't solved a loneliness problem. We're just finding lonely people on Discord who are talking to allegedly their friends, which is why I think the number has just you know skyrocketed over the years.

Jay Nachlis  6:35  
And the thing is, going back to what we were talking about before, the there's no replacement for in-person contact, right? But I've seen instances where, like, I have a I have a 20 year old and I have a 23 year old. My 23 year old is both of them have huge online communities, but the 23 year old has found people online in. He has this incredible community of friends in Oklahoma City, and he has a community of friends in Portland, Oregon, and we live in North Carolina. And in multiple occasions now, he's gone out, flown out, and seen them, and hung out with them, and gone to conventions, and and done stuff together. So, the online did lead to the other thing, which I guess goes to this point of of how powerful just that first connection point can be,

Matt Cundill  7:21  
yeah, and I don't want to make it sound like any of that might be weird, just because of an older generation. Because some of my best friends I met through the hit line working all night radio, and they're still my friends today, right?

Jay Nachlis  7:33  
Yeah,

Matt Cundill  7:34  
community of Rush fans, for instance, community of Def Leppard fans,

Jay Nachlis  7:38  
and community around the same topic. I think that's that's one of the powers of podcasting. Is it's a you you go and listen to whether you're talk whether it's a podcast about music or sports or politics or whatever politics is different but you know what I mean. It's a shared it's a shared interest that can bring people together. Peter Bukowski from Locked On Packers told that incredible story about these two brothers that were really close when they were younger, and they drifted apart. And he has what's the saying that he has? Most rookies are bad, right? And this is a quote that he has on his podcast all the time. He says most rookies are bad, and then he found these these brothers. I think at a game at a Packers game, right? It

Matt Cundill  8:27  
was at the it was at the the draft in Green Bay,

Jay Nachlis  8:30  
the NFL draft, exactly right in

Matt Cundill  8:31  
2024, I think.

Jay Nachlis  8:33  
And the T shirt said most rookies are bad, and the quote was attributed to him. And he finds out that these brothers who had drifted apart actually came back together because they found out by accident that they both listened to Locked On Packers and now they talk every day. So that's just such a great like microcosm of what we're talking about here.

Matt Cundill  8:57  
And for anybody who wants to you know see the full talk, it's been made available through Sounds Profitable and Podcast Movement YouTube link. Actually, the actual YouTube is embedded right on the episode page of this very episode. You're all encouraged to go and watch it. It was only 20 minutes we spoke too, so very digestible, Jay. And we we wrapped up a few minutes early, and I'm glad you wrapped it up early and said, "Okay, well that's it, because I would have just gone on about nothing, just to fill time.

Jay Nachlis  9:24  
Well, we're used to doing that. We we know how to fill time. Good

Matt Cundill  9:29  
radio person in the midday shift knows when to get out.

Jay Nachlis  9:31  
Exactly, tight and bright.

Matt Cundill  9:33  
You said political a minute ago, and I remember also you've done a study involving politics and when you talk about politics and what happens, and it's not good.

Jay Nachlis  9:42  
Well, it's it's definitely divisive, especially today.

Matt Cundill  9:47  
But I mean, like you did this whole study, and I'm like, yeah. If you talk about anything involving politics now, you're it's you're essentially cutting your audience in half.

Jay Nachlis  9:55  
You got to be strategic and understand what I mean. That that is. One of the benefits, you don't have to do like big research projects necessarily, but it is key to understand your audience on as deep a level as possible, and to understand not only what they like but also what they expect from you. And so, if politics, look, there are some brands out there that that's literally what they do, and it's what people come to them for, right? Is divisiveness and politics and arguments and everything else. But if you bring that into a show where people don't expect that, you really are at risk of potentially damaging your brand and that trust and relationship with your listener.

Matt Cundill  10:40  
I get the feeling that maybe 1520, years ago, you would talk about politics and just bore the audience, and they would drift away. But now you completely alienate them,

Jay Nachlis  10:49  
right? Because the definition of politics is just completely different. It's the way we communicate with each other. We're not we're not willing to listen to each other in the same way, we don't talk to each other in in a civil way, and the stances have gotten so extreme compared to 15 years ago.

Matt Cundill  11:11  
You had a busy summer. Somebody actually asked me recently, "Oh, ask him if anyone is still listening to the radio. And I said, "Actually, he can answer that because you did a study involving radio listeners, and you spoke directly to them. And what was your takeaway from speaking to radio listeners about what they expect in radio?

Jay Nachlis  11:29  
That was a really fun study. That was called the Listener Truth Project, and that was something that we did for Morning Show Boot Camp, which takes place every year. It's one of the last great radio conferences. I sometimes think about. I'm actually writing a blog about it right now on LinkedIn. About you know, back in the day, I was very fortunate to get to go to a lot of really fun radio conventions, and this is one that gets all of these air talent together and collaborate, share ideas, and the guy who started that, Don Anthony, had this idea of doing a study of radio listeners today to really understand what they like and don't like or want about the medium. And so we had an interview with these 10 radio listeners, different formats, different ages, different areas of the country, and there are definitely similarities to some of the things we're talking about in podcasting to what we saw in that radio study, which is the through line really is connection, and these things that we we sometimes I think radio looks at itself and maybe is too hard on itself. In other words, people use radio for the most part as an escape from the real world. The real world is is hard and overwhelming, especially right now. Like the news cycle is it's nonstop, right? And so, and we're talking about we're not talking about talk radio. We're talking about FM music radio because that's what we studied. And so when people choose an FM music radio station, no matter what format, if you're talking about pop or hip hop or country or whatever it is, they tend to go there because they want to laugh, because they want to have some fun, they want to play silly games. They want to hear stories about the toilet paper being on the roll wrong. This is the thing, of course, that morning shows have been doing for decades. And you say to yourself, "Oh, well, do people still want to hear that? Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

Matt Cundill  13:37  
You were talking about, you know, the last great radio conference being morning show boot camp, they just had the last conclave. It was you know sadly at the exact same time that you and I were at were at podcast movement. What does radio do for a conference now outside of you know morning show boot camp? Is there a way to reimagine or reinvented it?

Jay Nachlis  13:56  
I would like to think so. You know what? One of the problems is, to be honest, is if you if you go back to the the radio conventions of your the R and R the Gavin those those radio conferences when I came up like the talent was there and program directors were certainly there and then over the years what happened with radio conferences was well the talent wasn't there anymore. It was just programmers and and group heads and owners, and then the programmers were gone, and then it was just group heads that came and did the sessions, and the energy just changed. One of the things that really appealed to me about podcasting the the first podcast conference I went to was Podcast Movement in Philadelphia, and I just remember looking around and feeling this electricity and this energy that I hadn't felt at a conference in many many years, and it occurred to me that one of the reasons for that was because the creators were there; they were coming up and they wanted to share ideas, and they were hugely collaborative, and that got. That attracted me to the medium so much, and so, just to answer your original question, if radio were to reinvent something, the only way you do it is from the ground up. It has to be done by the people behind the microphone doing doing the work every day in the studio.

Matt Cundill  15:16  
Well, we'll harken back to Todd Cochran. He always said, "Are the creators there? And if the creators are there, you're going to have a good show. 2018, there was a lot of creators. There was also a lot of VC money floating around, as I recall.

Jay Nachlis  15:28  
That's true.

Matt Cundill  15:29  
Yeah, but I went in 2016. I went to two conferences back to back. One was the Conclave, and there was a the creators were there. They were looking for direction, and they were having trouble getting direction from actual radio leaders who couldn't really answer what they had done that was innovative in the last six months. I'm not exaggerating; that was a question that was asked, and everybody struggled with it. And I said, "Yeah, this industry is going to have problems for the next little while. And then I went to Podcast Movement in Chicago, and I went, "Oh, this is where all the people who couldn't get a job on all night radio are, you know, and they were they were physically creating right in front of me, and there was a buzz in the room, and there was sort of a community to try to help everybody. And rising tide, you know, lifts all boats and and that sort of thing. But you know, we go to 2024 2025. Podcast movement has an issue where the creators aren't there anymore, and there's just a lot of people explaining to me that if I don't have 10,000 downloads, I can't work with

Jay Nachlis  16:33  
them. I'm I'm genuinely worried about this, and I think that is a core thing about our medium that we have to be concerned about, and I've been thinking about this. I don't know about you, but there's, you know, I've seen Tom Webster give a lot of keynotes, and he gives a lot of great keynotes. But the one he gave a couple of weeks ago, the one about Netflix, has stuck with me. It's actually kept me up at night. And and to recap for what he said to everybody, they sounds profitable. Recently, did a study, and you know we've shown in our research what the top reported podcast consumption platforms are, and it's not that's not strictly analytic data. That's that's people reporting, self reporting. These are the ones I went to, and that's where you started to see Apple declining, and you saw that YouTube and Spotify became the kings of of the platforms of podcast consumption, and what he showed was now Netflix is behind YouTube and Spotify as a podcast platform. Which the big question that he rose arose to the industry was, you know, what's the big difference between Spotify and YouTube and every other one and Netflix is it's a gated community. You can that's beauty of of podcasts, and we all know that we can get on any podcaster can get on almost any platform, including big dogs like YouTube and Spotify, but you can't get on Netflix, and that gate is a is a serious challenge for the community to to wrestle with.

Matt Cundill  18:07  
I thought the best analogy he had was Tower Records.

Jay Nachlis  18:12  
Yes,

Matt Cundill  18:13  
and he said we are losing our Tower Records. If you go into Apple Podcasts and you open it up, oh look, there's a whole bunch of podcasts you can choose from right here. These ones are front racked, generally under new and noteworthy or under a particular category. He matched the experience to going shopping at Tower Records or in Canada, what was HMV, and that sort of thing. And now there isn't that. It's more like Walmart that only carries the top 10 albums, so you can go find Taylor Swift and a couple of others in a back corner.

Jay Nachlis  18:45  
I do not want podcasting to blur. I don't want podcast movement to blur into VidCon and CreatorCon. If we just become another creator medium, ugh. What's the specialness of the community? What's the specialness of the medium? And we've shown what the specialness of the medium is. And I know you want to ask about this. And of course, a lot of this is coming because of the rise of video. And the more that we lose the focus on audio, the more we tiptoe into maybe not tiptoe. Maybe take larger steps than that into that direction I was just talking about.

Matt Cundill  19:25  
Yeah, I just finished up another conversation with an up and coming creator, and I asked him about his podcast. He said, "Well, it's on YouTube, and it's most popular on YouTube. I said, "Well, what about Apple? And he said, "Yeah, it's on Apple. And sometimes I really wonder, and this is where I'm sort of sticking with this video audio situation. That there's really only one metric, and that's that's the TSL, time spent listening. How much time are you spending on your audio, and how much time are you spending on your video? And nearly all creators that I. Speak to do not know what that ratio is between the amount of time spent between video and audio, and I believe if you open it up, just about everybody, unless you started as a YouTuber and are a YouTuber, you're going to find a lot of people are listening to your show, and they may even say, "Oh yeah, I get it on YouTube or I watch it on YouTube. That might be what you remember, but what are you actually doing? And I think that's the difficulty in the job that you do, because what people say versus what people do, two different things. By the way, we've lived in that zone forever with diary measurement and radio, which is you know I'm glad that's going away. We hope in some places.

Jay Nachlis  20:38  
No, you're absolutely right. That's where that that old phrase "perception is reality" comes from right? Is that is that it doesn't always match, but we do find that behavior not always in the moment, but those perceptions usually are predictive of behavior that's that's going to happen.

Matt Cundill  20:56  
Well, I'm glad you knew I would be asking video type questions today, and you were ready. I can't imagine why. Is there anything else you were ready with? Because I'm probably not going to ask too much more in the way of video.

Jay Nachlis  21:09  
No, no. You know, I I'll just say this one thing, and I've said this before, but I wanted to say it again for you, which is I sometimes

Matt Cundill  21:17  
the

Jay Nachlis  21:17  
headlines about video. I just want I want everybody to understand this. I don't want people to get discouraged about the headlines about video because the headlines about video make it seem like video is replacing audio in podcasting, and it only happens if we let it. Because the reality is, when we did state of video podcasting, that study showed this. By the way, it didn't say that video was replacing audio, and in fact, it showed that audio was growing in all the places that it should grow. It was growing in the car, it was growing, you know, commuting, exercising, all of those things. Video, the rise of video, is connected by and large, to one thing, and that is the rise of the smart TV and YouTube on smart TV. The two are connected, and people are using video as a replacement for TV shows. That's why video is is rising. And when you when you think of it in that context, then you realize pretty quickly that not every show should be primary video. There are many that should be and fit very well into that box and fit very well into Netflix. Like the fact that The Breakfast Club, for example, which is a hugely popular radio show that's now a hugely popular Netflix podcast, makes complete sense and was already a hugely popular YouTube channel. That makes sense, but it doesn't necessarily mean that yours is right for that. Number one, and number two, there's still such a need that if we do that, all of that at the expense of audio, you're going to be missing out on an entire opportunity of what all these things that we talked about that makes podcasting special in the first place.

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Matt Cundill  23:42  
YouTube on the smart TV in the bedroom in the living room is really the catalyst for a lot of this stuff, and I can sort of hear and see my behavior. I lie down on the couch. I grab the remote. My allegedly smart TV has a lot of apps on it, most of which I don't care about, including Tubi and a bunch of other ones. I if I click on it, I don't know what's inside it, and I'm not sure that I want it. Oh, look, there's YouTube. Let's see what's on YouTube. It's already curated towards me. I've already I already know what's in it, and I find it. Maybe I'll watch YouTube Creator, or I will be reminded of something else on another platform. Oh, there's a podcast there. Okay, I can listen to that on Apple. I will listen to that another time. The discoverability on YouTube is is the main point. I always tell people, you're here for the discovery. You're here to be found. You're here to be recognized. And I think you and I asked you the question, by the way, podcast movement. I always ask this question: Do you have a number on the percentage of people who will see something on video or even YouTube and then maybe move over to another? App or listen to it. The

Jay Nachlis  25:02  
percentage of people that minimize the video and listen and don't watch, yeah, that's about 37% To

Matt Cundill  25:08  
all that, I want to ask you about Apple Podcasts on video. So back in February, when it was going to launch, came out right after President's Day that they were going to do this. We're like, what's the impact going to be? So we're six months in, or roughly. What has the impact of Apple Podcast been so far on video?

Jay Nachlis  25:29  
I can tell you what the challenge that Apple will have, and this comes back to what we talked about with with perceptions. This is really this is really important to remember about perceptions of your brand versus usage, YouTube is known as a video platform. Right, every consumer thinks of YouTube as a video platform. So the fact that they do well in video podcasts shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Spotify is an audio platform. Apple is an audio platform, so if you want people to use video on your platform, you have to create a perceptual behavioral shift, or else it's not going to happen in the ways that you want it to. They're not going to just do it because you offered it.

Matt Cundill  26:18  
I see. I see a show that's on Apple Video, and I'm like, great! I can't wait to go home and watch that on YouTube. Uh huh. What are we supposed to make with all the with all the streaming and the smart TVs that just beyond what we've already sort of spoken about? Because there's it it it feels like the Wild West is out there in streaming TV land, and there are going to be some podcasts that are going to that are going to find their way in. But and we also saw the growth, you know, that that there is growth in in smart TVs and apps. Do you have a little prediction about where that's going to go in the next year, and if it's good for podcasting?

Jay Nachlis  26:59  
We actually just did a study that we haven't publicly released yet, called the Streaming Brand Index, that relates to what you're talking about, but not. It doesn't specifically go into podcasting, but it does really cover this wild west phenomenon that you're talking about. And what we were trying to get at is, it's like what we looked at outside looking into the TV streaming industry was there's so many, in some ways the same as podcasting, and in that there's this wealth of analytics. Like we know that Netflix and and Apple and YouTube, like all all the big players, have a wealth of analytics about the consumers and who's using them and cross-platform and all of that, but it was our hypothesis that. But what are the images that consumers have of these platforms? I can give you an example. I recently just started watching Yellowstone, and I like Taylor Sheridan. I watch Tulsa King and I watch Mayor of Kingstown. And it's like eventually I was going to get to Yellowstone. And where do you think I went to go find Yellowstone? Do you know what platform all his shows are on? Paramount. Okay, Paramount. Sure. So he had a contract with Paramount. I went to Paramount. Do you know what shows not on Paramount? That one, Yellowstone. It's the only one. Guess where that is? Peacock. I'm sorry. What? So okay. I think it has something to do with the fact that Taylor Sheridan signed some new deal with Universal, and maybe that was part of the deal. Like the consumer has any idea this is going on, but there is such a a crazy utilitarian disrespect of the consumer going on in that space. Whether you're talking about price or you're talking about choice and usability, like all of this stuff is just we're being beaten over the head, and then smart TVs being offered for you know $299. Why? So they can have all of your data, of course, right? And at the end of the day, what we found in this study was that most of these platforms have very few deep images. You know, Disney Plus, of course, has the family image, right? And ESPN has a sports image, but when you're talking about other images, like you know the the platform that offers blank,

Matt Cundill  29:32  
well, I just I just mentioned I don't know what's inside Tubi. I'm not here to pick on Tubi. I just don't know what's in it.

Jay Nachlis  29:38  
What's interesting is Tubi actually did have a higher a higher depth of image perception than a lot of the others, which was interesting to us because it surprised us. However, if you go back to and I don't know how much marketing they've done outside of this, but they did a Super Bowl ad a year or two ago. That was called the rabbit hole, and it was great. Actually, a perceived negative, which is there's too much choice in streaming, and they turned it into a positive, which is a classic ninja marketing play, right? Where they said, you know, Tubi, we've got everything. I'm going to go down this rabbit hole. I'm going to go find this here, and I'm going to find this here, and find this here. And Tubi has actually done a a relatively good job for a they call it fast channel, which is free ad supported television. They've done a fairly good job comparative to all of these other channels that exist in building a little bit of a brand. But even still, there's very few dominant brands, dominant images. So, in other words, there is still room for someone to go in and say, "If I was Apple, most of these channels have ad-supported tiers, and they have their, or you can pay extra. Classic when they all came on, and you paid a fee

Matt Cundill  30:58  
in-app purchases,

Jay Nachlis  31:00  
right? You you paid a fee. What do you mean? I I you're putting commercials. I'm already paying now. Of course, you have to pay more if you want to get ad free. Now we know that the platforms they want you to to pay the lower level so you get commercials because they make more money off of that, right? But Apple, to my knowledge, I'm just like this is off the top of my head. I think Apple's the only one that you pay for, and they don't run commercials, and you don't have to pay an extra level for it, right? That's at least I think they're the only ones that I can think of. If you were Apple, wouldn't you market the hell out of that? Do you know what I mean? We're the platform where you pay, and you and and we don't bombard you with commercials, and maybe maybe they don't do that because at some point they're going to be the last. They want to. They know they're going to hit you at you know eight months from now they're going to start selling commercials. I don't know, but

Matt Cundill  31:51  
they're also the company that have so many wannabe Apple marketers out there. We always want to tell Apple how to market market the Apple Podcast video, market Apple Podcasts, you know, market this particular part because Apple is, I think, because there's a lot of trust that we have with Apple, and I know I can watch Ted Lasso, and it's easy to get into, easy to get out.

Jay Nachlis  32:16  
Agree, but their Apple has a challenge. They have a brand challenge that a few of these brands that mean other things is tough to overcome, right? Apple's a computer company. Oh, but we have a, you know, we also have a TV channel and a, you know, a phone and a this. But but it's really that that leap from from a tech company to a TV channel and is the same problem for Amazon, Amazon Prime Video. That's real with consumers. Consumers do get confused by that, and it does block some of their growth. So whether or not, I mean, this is something you could debate, but whether or not, for example, Amazon should have named Prime Video, something else, or whether Apple TV Plus should have been called something else, don't know. But that is a that is a little bit of a block from a perception standpoint.

Matt Cundill  33:09  
I do find it interesting when I turn on my smart TV; it looks like a game of memory or concentration, trying to do the matching. And I and I think a future study is going to be how much hide and seek are you willing to do to go and find a piece of content? And we've just talked about this with smart speakers. Yet we still talk and bitch and complain about discoverability within Spotify or Apple. That, in comparison, is easier than the other stuff that's going on in smart TV Land.

Jay Nachlis  33:41  
There's no question about it. I mean, look at look at the live sports opportunity, and look at Netflix now trying to play in live sports for obvious reasons. We know that that that's like one of the few things where you can get a bunch of that in award shows, or one of the few things that you can get people to truly watch at the same time and sell an unbelievable ad premium for, but going back to our perception things. But do you think of Netflix for live sports? Of course you don't. This is a whole nother like sidetrack. But the whole thing with the NFL drives me crazy with the fact that they they now have games on. It seems like every other channel, and so behind a paywall. So you want me to to watch a game on Peacock, so I have to pay for Peacock. You want me to watch a game on Netflix, so I have to pay for Netflix. You want me to watch a game on one or two YouTube, right? It's crazy.

Matt Cundill  34:35  
Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky in Canada. I can watch it all on Dazone. You know, I get that one offering, and you know the NHL started just the other day, and I said, "Oh, I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna buy a channel so I can watch the Montreal Canadiens, whether it's English or French. Well, half the local games are here. There's also an Amazon game. I'll fine, screw that. I'll watch it in French. Oh, that's half of them are over here on this channel, and then the other half are over here on this channel, and I'm like, I think I'll just wait for the playoffs and see if they make it.

Jay Nachlis  35:11  
Right, right. Think about I think about the the Carolina Hurricanes, and a lot of teams are going like this. So in the you know in the U.S. you had this regional sports networks, and and years ago, Fox had all these regional sports networks. So you had Fox Sports South, Fox Sports West Coast, and all of these. And so your your team would be part of this regional network, and then it got sold. What's crazy is they sold the naming rights of the network to another company. So first it was Bally Sports, and then it was FanDuel Sports Network. Like this was, they literally sold the name of the network. FanDuel didn't own the network; they just sponsored the network, and so you had to pay $20 a month or whatever it was to get it. Well, that all folded, right? Company goes out of business. So the Carolina Hurricanes start their own network, Carolina Hurricanes Network. So one press release and an email or two, and this is what I understand about it: to get Carolina Hurricanes games, you have to go onto Amazon Prime. You don't have to be a Prime member, but you have to have an Amazon membership, and that's how. And then again, you pay $20 a month to get the games. I haven't tried to do it yet. I have no idea how I would do that to find to go to Amazon Prime, and maybe it's easier than I think. But then go find the Carolina Hurricanes Network and sign up for it. Don't you think? From a consumer, like think about a friction standpoint. Think about how hard it is, first of all, to build awareness of the fact that we've got this new network, and here's how you access it. So, what percentage of Carolina Hurricanes fans that want to watch games even know that this is a way to do it? Two press releases isn't going to do it, but not just awareness. You've got to train them on how to do it, and they're not. And I'm just thinking about all the customers, potential customers, are going to get left on the table because of that extra work.

Matt Cundill  37:13  
It's great that you have your own sports network. I know the Buffalo Bills have their own sports network now, and no longer on WGR, but they are selling that themselves, but the friction point. I I think back nearly 10 years ago when Dazone came to Canada. They had an NFL exclusive deal, and it lasted six weeks because nobody could figure out how to get on. And a lot of the houses, especially in rural areas, just couldn't you know manage you know the stream speed. Yeah, we have that as well. We get probably about three or four different channels. I'll just go and buy the channel, but my wife will go and just buy it through Prime. So it seems as Amazon Prime is a reseller of some of this other stuff. So it's it's not even hide and seek now. It's some sort of big giant labyrinth to try to go and find your content.

Jay Nachlis  38:00  
We talked a little bit about this at the panel in New York, which is this inside versus outside thinking. Inside thinking is consumers are going to figure it out. We're going to put this out there, and consumers are figure it out. Outside thinking is putting yourself in their shoes and going, no, they're not going to figure it out. It's they've got busy lives, and this is not their universe, and you've got to step by step tell them how to do

Matt Cundill  38:24  
it. Yeah, I wasn't worried when I had an AM radio station that was going to be carrying Winnipeg Jets hockey because I knew people would be able to find it. It didn't matter; it was somewhere on the AM dial. Well, a lot of people don't like AM. No, not true. If you put it there, they'll find that pretty easily. But the rest of the stuff is like it's. I feel like it's like level 10 now, right? Exactly. I want to talk about this one because you did such a great job with it for for my company, and that's Pod Predictor. And a couple times we've worked together with with you for Pod Predictor. It gets your podcast off to a great start, and it's pretty easy to do. So walk people through why you should do Pod Predictor and and what you would need to to put together a study for a great podcast launch.

Jay Nachlis  39:10  
Yeah, no, thank you. So, Pod Predictor was really my answer for finding a solution, Coleman Insights Research solution for the independent podcaster, something that was more affordable that could give you results from real podcast consumers to find out pre-launch what direction to go in, and so you know through a couple of iterations of it, it is essentially designed to mirror the consumer experience, right? So if I go on to Spotify, for example, and the algorithm puts up you know something for me to look at, they'll show me the title and show art, and then I will look at the title and show art and decide whether or not I should click on it. And if I click on it, then I get a full description, and then I can decide whether or not I want to go listen to that show. That's how Pod Predictor is designed. So. You take your show, and you give us two versions of show art. You give us two titles, and you give us two descriptions. We measure that against both each other, but we also measure it against a bunch of other shows in different categories, and we measure it against a show in the same category, and then we find out which one tests better, how it did against everything else. The descriptions are evaluated independently so that we can find out. Sometimes you find out that you know you might remember from yours. There's this show that we that we measure as one of like the the the red herring benchmark shows. The title and art test terribly, and the description tests really well because the the guy on the the guy on the cover looks a little bit creepy.

Matt Cundill  40:47  
Oh yeah, exactly. Sometimes it's not a good idea to put your face on the on the cover art of your podcast.

Jay Nachlis  40:53  
Yeah, but that but you know what? There's a lesson. There's a learning, which is if I was advising that podcast, I would say your description is fine. You've got to change the cover, and so you find it both ways. And then ultimately, we also evaluate people's interest in your topic, and that's one of the ways that no matter how niche you are, whether you're a legal podcast, right, or financial advisor, whatever it might be, we're going to find out how interested people are in your content, and then look and see how things did among people that are interested in your content, not just overall. And then at the end, we show you the results. I give you some recommendations, some specific recommendations. The whole process takes about three weeks. So if you start it at pre-launch and say, "I'm going to, you know, think about these couple of things strategically going into it, I think it'd be really valuable.

Matt Cundill  41:41  
Would you consider adding one more component?

Jay Nachlis  41:44  
Of course,

Matt Cundill  41:45  
a trailer.

Jay Nachlis  41:46  
Yeah,

Matt Cundill  41:47  
would that make it harder or more time-consuming? Or

Jay Nachlis  41:51  
it makes it more time-consuming for sure. But if it was short, it still might work in the in the construct of it.

Matt Cundill  41:59  
We say trailer could be promo, you know, one minute. Let's say we did, you know, you did one minute piece of audio, and delivered it to your recent the people you're researching. Yeah, could get a little bit of sound feedback from that. You know, some idea about oh, this is the sound that might be a little bit better. Again, I don't want to make anything too complicated. What I love about Pod Predictor is it's simple. So like anything else, I always try to make it complicated.

Jay Nachlis  42:23  
No, I think that whether or not it works within the pod predictor construct is one question, but to do a podcast trailer study separately for sure. And you know, obviously, I would direct you to you know go to colemaninsights.com, the industry studies page, where you can see a lot of these studies that Matt's talking about, the Listener Truth Project is on there. The the mental health one, Power of Community, is on there, and the podcast trailer study that we did earlier this year with Ariel Nissenblatt and Rachel Corbett from Nova Entertainment in Australia, Peter Ferioli from Pantheon Podcasts, and that study was was really interesting because we looked at different criteria. So you know we pitted an AI voiced one against a natural voiced one. We pitted the host red versus a third third voice, and there was one other. Oh, in the other one we changed out the first 15 seconds. There were some great learnings from that for sure. And so, to your point, could you take that same model and apply it to your trailer? Yeah, for sure.

Matt Cundill  43:27  
I find trailers to be fascinating. If you don't have one for your show, get one. If you don't know what one is, Ariel Nissenblatt has a podcast called Trailer Park, yeah, which talks about the good and the bad of trailers. And sometimes I've gone to her and said, "Hey, is this any good? And she goes, "That's pretty good. And then other times I've gone after everybody in my life said, "Oh, this is amazing. And she goes, "Yeah, it's not really that good. So I get the truth sometimes, you know, when you when you put it out, when you ask somebody that's not your family, right? Yeah, exactly.

Jay Nachlis  44:00  
And she recent episodes of Trailer Park. She she put out three episodes at once that interview us separately. One is with Rachel, one's with Peter, one's with me, and we we go in depth about that particular study.

Matt Cundill  44:13  
And one more thing that a trailer does that's unintended is it really gets you focused for your show because if you can't really write a trailer about this show. You probably shouldn't be doing the show. You're not focused and ready to go with the show. You're just sort of guessing.

Jay Nachlis  44:28  
That's the old exactly. Can you? It's the elevator pitch. You know. Can you tell me in 15 seconds what your show is about? If you don't, you know, you've got to figure that out. And and the other thing I would say about trailers is we get caught up in the the action step, and so we think that if somebody listened to the trailer or watched the trailer and didn't listen to the the show, that it's somehow a failure. We have to remember how consumers do things. They don't they don't always listen then click, listen then go. It's just it's no. Than if I was driving down the road and I saw a billboard for kitchen renovation company, I'm not going to get on my phone right away and call the kitchen renovation company. I'm going to see the billboard over and over again. I'm going to hear the spot on the radio. I'm going to see it on a TV. I'm going to drive by it right, and then one day I'm going to be looking at my kitchen cabinets and I'm going to go, gosh, what was that kitchen renovation company that I heard? Right, and so remember, the value of a trailer isn't that action in the moment, and it may take six months, and it may take a year, and it may never happen. But you are also building the brand. You're building the perception of the brand every time you run that trailer, and there's immense value in that.

Matt Cundill  45:42  
When I get stuck in the iHeart app and I'm listening to live radio, they are playing trailers from from iHeart podcasts in there. Some of those trailers are five years old, and I still say I got to listen to that show. So you said up to one year. No, you can go five years, and these are older podcasts, and again, your back catalog is important, and you know the podcasts from five and six years ago are just as relevant as the ones today.

Jay Nachlis  46:09  
How long has radio wrestled with this idea of recycling? You know, you're always going to have talent that say, "Oh, I can't air that again. If it was good, why would you not? And it's no different in podcasting.

Matt Cundill  46:22  
Yeah, you're the only one who knows, right? So air it again, right? Yeah,

Jay Nachlis  46:26  
I I like seeing, and by the way, I like seeing and hearing things multiple times that I liked.

Matt Cundill  46:31  
Well, especially hey, listen to this. You get you get a friend now to come listen to it too, right?

Jay Nachlis  46:35  
Yeah, right.

Matt Cundill  46:37  
Jay, this has been very educational. Once again, we talked about all the things I wasn't planning on talking about, because that's just what happens when we get together.

Jay Nachlis  46:45  
It is not such a bad thing. It was a lot of fun.

Matt Cundill  46:49  
How far do the Bills go this year?

Jay Nachlis  46:50  
You know, Matt, to be a Bills fan, you you have to believe every year that this is the year. It's the it's the only way, and so this this is the year.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  47:04  
Another Sound Off Media Company podcast.