The Trip To PodSummit YYC

Matt Cundill  0:00  
This bonus episode of the sound op podcast is brought to you by nlogic. They are turning Canadian audience data into smarter TV and radio decisions and by mega tracks, the

Dervla Trainor (Voiceover)  0:10  
sound of entertainment, providing music and sound effects for radio podcasts and other media professionals. Mega tracks is your one stop shop for library and custom tracks. Head over to Mega tracks.com. To begin your music search. That's M, E, G, A, T, R, A, x.com,

Tara Sands  0:30  
the sound off podcast. Bonus episode.

Matt Cundill  0:34  
Back in September, I had a chance to go to calgary to Experience podcast. Y, Y, C. The event is assembled by Tim Truax and his family, and it took place at a theater called the Grand which is an excellent venue for the event. The show had all the feels of the early days of Podcast Movement in Dallas, with the majority of attendees being creators. First off, I want to say that the Hoser factor was very high in the room. If you're Canadian, you know what I mean. If you're American, you really know what I mean. The show was well supported by Amazon art 19, who managed to slide me one of the very best swag gifts there is out there socks. I am super pumped that the art 19 socks are back. The show kicked off with Rachel Siegel, who is the host of a podcast called Beyond a ballot, which is a political podcast aimed at Canadian women with an interest in politics, we had our first shout out asking for ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts in order to help grow the show. Now I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'll say it again, ratings and reviews do not help others find the show. Thankfully, there were a few others later in the event who issued that memo and then all appeared right again in my world, the keynote speaker was Jesse Lipscomb. He's an actor and author of the book The Art of Doing Edmonton native keynote was 10 out of 10, and I can't describe it, you had to be there, and because you weren't there, you should probably buy the book. It was clear that this would be a creators conference based on the truths, myths and questions that were being kicked about. So for instance, the words discoverability problem was said no fewer than three times before noon on day one, and again, inside of me, a little piece of me begins to die because podcasting does not have a discoverability problem, but your podcast might have a discoverability problem. Saying that podcasting has a discoverability problem is untrue and unhelpful, especially if you're trying to attract advertisers and sponsors to your show, given all the tools out there these days to find things like Google and chat GPT, a simple conversation will land any listener on the podcast that they're looking for, whether or not you're discoverable in that ecosystem, is your problem, not someone else's. It was also very refreshing to not hear that I would need 10,000 downloads in order to monetize my podcast. By the time I got to Podcast Movement in Washington in 2024 I had heard it so many times over the years that I just grew tired of it. I actually came up with the idea of simply leaving the room if anybody said I needed X number of downloads in order to monetize my show, and if you want to know why people have sort of knocked Podcast Movement over the last few years for not being creator friendly, it's statements like that,

Matt Cundill  3:35  
solely from my experience. Podcast YYC was also the first event where someone from YouTube showed up to work directly with podcasters and thank you. Alex Patterson, who heads up the civics and podcast division at YouTube Canada, he did two sessions, including the heavily useful ways to build your podcast into YouTube, and I noticed throughout the weekend, he was asked on multiple occasions to very simply define a podcast, and he said it's a playlist. That's it. That's all he said. Now I would probably clarify that it's a playlist of videos marked as a podcast in YouTube, but for somebody who works from YouTube, yeah, it's a playlist. Alex walked everyone through the do's and don'ts of podcasting in YouTube, and it was tremendously helpful. And he reiterated the importance of having good sound, which, if you've been following my newsletter, which you can get at sounding off dot news, subscribe now nobody is going to watch your video if your sound sucks. This is also the first time that I've looked at Google and YouTube as being a true podcast ally in the past, it's always been, here's what we're doing, and we think it's the greatest thing ever. And now it's here's how we can help you. And if you just think back to a minute ago, when I was talking about podcasting's discovery issues, YouTube is a great way, and should be part of your plan to make yourself discoverable. I have this other saying, if you care, you're there, and YouTube, we're there. Matt heard from Signal Hill insights shared his presentation of the Canadian podcast listener. I've saved two of my favorite stats from that presentation. When Canadians were asked what percentage of podcasts they listen to that are from Canada. The mean number was 42% now this is from the 2024 study. That's pretty good, and I hope that someone from the CRTC takes note of what I just said and understand that Canadians know great content when they hear it. And I also hope they apply that to radio and whatever crazy rules are coming up with next the listener knows what they want, and they don't need anyone to regulate this much anymore. We're past that. The other amazing stat is the gender ratio of podcast listeners in every province. It skews male, except for one province, and that's Alberta, more women listen to podcasts than men in Alberta. And I thought, why would that be? And you know what? It comes down to content. There are some truly great Alberta podcast Trailblazers I can mention. And off the top of my head, Carrie doll Jan Arden, who was there, I think of Karen unland, who championed the Alberta Podcast Network right up to 2023, podcast that's in my network buried motives out of Carstairs, Alberta. It's a true crime podcast, but throughout the years of 2016 to 2022 there were a lot of podcasts in Alberta led by females, and that made an impact from all the data that I've worked with in the past here at the sound off media company, Albertans don't have as much interest in podcasts made out east compared to the ones that are made locally. Every time we launched an Alberta podcast, it popped instantly. And from all accounts and people that I've spoken to at places like the nation network, who have great Oilers and flames podcasts, real talk with Ryan Jesperson made an immediate impact. And I think the fact that this conference was based in Calgary, leads me to make a very, very bold declaration. I think I'd like to declare Alberta, the podcast capital of Canada. Now you'll note that I did not choose between Calgary and Edmonton, and that's because I think both cities should share the claim. I see no discernible evidence that one is better than the other when it comes to creating podcast content, but I definitely do think the province is more fertile when it comes to podcast creation. Take that Toronto. Other things that happened, it was great to reconnect with Doug downs, who worked in Edmonton back in the 90s at ITV. He now heads up a PR company for podcasters. You should check it out in the show notes of this episode. Also great to see James Cridland from pod news, who traveled the furthest to give a great history for everyone about the history of podcast and talked about a lot of those podcast myths. At the same time, I met Mary Chan, who is a breath of fresh air for helping people find their podcast voice. And I think everyone who starts podcasting for the first time is concerned about their voice. She helped everyone who attended her session get closer to finding theirs. It's going to come up again next year. It's called podcast YYC. I think it is worth the trip for you, especially if you're a podcast creator. If you didn't get a chance to go and you'd like to meet with me anyway, I've got some available appointments down in the show notes of this episode. You can just click on it, connect with me, and we can have a coffee together, half hour chat, whatever it is. Love to speak with you. Next week, I'm going to have a chat with somebody that I met at podcast YYC. In the meantime, please tell a friend about this show. We're also welcoming five star reviews, but deep down, we'd prefer that you tell a friend about this show. The

Tara Sands  8:50  
sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan cerminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aidan glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.