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In New Media Show #690, Host Rob Greenlee, Podcast Hall of Famer and Founder of TrustFactorLab.com, joins Laura Burkhauser, CEO of Descript (https://www.descript.com), to explore how AI is changing the way creators edit, produce, and share their work.

As AI takes on more production tasks, what becomes more valuable about the human creator? Laura and I discuss creative direction, storytelling, authenticity, audience trust, and the role of tools such as Descript’s Underlord. The conversation also looks beyond editing to the business of creating media and the pressure to show up across more platforms.

From Editing to Creative Direction

We start with a question many creators are facing: is editing becoming more like directing?

Laura distinguishes between people whose craft is editing and people whose craft is the story they want to tell. Both can benefit from AI, but they may want very different levels of control.

For an editor, the small decisions are part of the art.

For a storyteller, editing may be the obstacle between recording an idea and sharing it with an audience.  We discuss why a clear creative vision still matters.

Asking AI to edit a podcast can produce a usable result, but communicating a specific perspective, reviewing its choices, and refining the work are what help a creator make something distinctive.

Let AI Handle the Friction

Laura’s approach to AI starts with understanding what creators actually want help doing.

Creators want relief from repetitive production work while keeping their voice, vision, and story. Laura describes Descript’s philosophy as “struggle with your art, not with your tools.”

That leads to a discussion about the promises AI companies make and the trust they can lose when those promises overlook how creative work happens.

Rob Greenlee shares his experience moving from assembling radio shows by hand to using Descript in my current workflow. We explore how creators can choose the right balance of manual editing and AI assistance for the content they want to make.

Authenticity and the Choices Behind an Edit

Does editing make a conversation less authentic? Laura argues that thoughtful editing can bring its meaning into sharper focus.

A reaction shot or a well-timed close-up can help an audience understand the emotion in a conversation. The question is whether an edit serves what happened between the people involved.

We also talk about the difference between being authentic and performing authenticity online. Showing up as yourself can build connection, but it can also leave creators exposed to criticism.

Laura explains why a recognizable human presence and community engagement matter to her.

Rob connects that discussion to my work with Trust Factor Lab and the challenge of building trust as more synthetic media enters the mix is the growing opportunity.

Start Creating Before Expecting a Business

Laura was a Descript customer before she joined the company. Editing a podcast with a friend showed her she could put her own humor and perspective into the world without mastering a complicated production tool.

Her practical advice is to begin by recording something.

The opportunity is to talk about a problem you understand, a subject you care about, or an issue you can explore with another person. Then edit it, share it, and keep going long enough to learn from the experience.

We discuss how the expectation of immediate revenue can get in the way of the authentic creator process.

Creating media can support a business even when the media itself is not the product. For coaches, consultants, founders, and other professionals, a video or podcast can show their expertise and help start a relationship that leads to work.

Community, Revenue, and Reaching the Right People

Our business discussion moves into audience support, Patreon, and sponsorship opportunities.  

Laura points to community support as one possible path for working creators. We also explore why a business serving a specific audience may be a better sponsorship prospect than a broad advertising buyer.

Local businesses and companies serving a particular interest give us examples to consider.

The discussion focuses on understanding your audience, what they care about, and which relationships could create value.

We also look at why more companies are building their own media operations and why creators feel pressure to produce both long-form conversations and short clips.

Algorithms and What Comes Next for Descript

Laura describes being intentional about her own media consumption, including turning off YouTube recommendations. I share how I use both subscriptions and algorithmic discovery.

A broader conversation starts about personalization.

Laura argues that the goals given to an algorithm matter. A system rewarded for attention does not automatically distinguish between an experience that helps someone and one that keeps them engaged through anger or distrust.

We close with Laura’s BIG Direction for Descript:

Helping creators across more of their content workflow, including identifying the subjects they want to own, building a library of useful material, publishing across platforms, and learning from what works. Laura describes that as a direction for future development as creators manage growing demands on their time.

Key takeaways:

AI can make production easier, but your perspective still gives people a reason to listen. Use the tools to reduce friction, make deliberate creative choices, and invest in the relationships that give your work lasting value.

Key topics

– AI editing, Underlord, and the changing creator workflow

Chapter timestamps

– 00:00 AI workflows and the value of the human creator

Guest Laura Burkhauser

Laura Burkhauser is CEO of Descript. In this conversation, she shares her perspective as a technology leader, a humanist, and a former Descript customer who discovered the creative possibilities of editing her own podcast.

– Descript: https://www.descript.com

Host Rob Greenlee

Rob Greenlee is the founder/builder of Trust Factor Lab (https://TrustFactorLab.com), host of New Media Show, and a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair. His work connects podcasting, video, creator platforms, audience trust, and the media business.

– New Media Show: https://newmediashow.com/

AI disclosure

AI tools helped organize and draft these show notes from the completed Episode #690 transcript. Rob Greenlee and guest retain all editorial responsibility. The New Media Show is human-hosted with human guests. AI is used for light editing of the actual audio and video media files.

The post How AI Is Changing the Creator Workflow | Descript CEO Laura Burkhauser #690 first appeared on New Media Show.

In New Media Show #689, I’m joined by Jim Louderback, publisher of Inside the Creator Economy and former CEO of VidCon and Revision3, to explore what the next phase of the creator economy means for people building media businesses.

Jim and I have lived through several shifts at the intersection of media and technology. This conversation connects the early days of video podcasting with today’s AI tools, changing audience habits, and the search for a lasting creator business. More ways to create and distribute content bring opportunity, but they also raise questions about attention, ownership, and trust.

Digital Jim and the Human Premium

We start with Digital Jim, the AI version of Jim that turns his human-written newsletter into short videos.

Jim explains how the team at Popcorn uses his words, an AI voice, and a visual avatar to help him reach audiences on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. He still writes the newsletter and reviews the videos before sharing them.

That experiment leads to one of the episode’s central ideas: the human premium.

Jim’s hypothesis is that, as audiences encounter more AI-generated media, they may place greater value on recognizable human voices, imperfect conversations, and experiences with real people. We discuss what that could mean for audience relationships, advertising, and in-person events.

Podcasting in a Bigger Creator Economy

We revisit Revision3, Diggnation, and the early use of short clips to introduce people to longer shows. Video podcasting and distributing a conversation in several formats have a longer history than today’s debate sometimes acknowledges.

Jim describes an audio-plus approach: people can listen when that suits them, while video creates another way to discover and experience a show. We also discuss why creators spread their work across platforms, how short-form awareness differs from monetization, and the risks of depending on one platform’s rules.

Could Personalized AI Media Disrupt YouTube

Our platform conversation moves from Netflix’s interest in creator programming to a bigger question:

What could disrupt YouTube? Jim suggests that a major technological shift, rather than another similar video service, could open the door.  His audience-of-one idea goes beyond recommending existing videos. We explore the possibility of media generated specifically for an individual, along with what Jim calls robo-social relationships with AI characters that respond to and remember their users.

We debate these predictions, including how they might compete for time people currently spend with human creators.

Your Identity and Archive Have Value

We discuss the business value of a creator’s name, image, likeness, voice, and archive. I share my experience exploring Royall.ai and receiving inquiries about using past New Media Show conversations as AI training material.

That raises questions about guest permission, licensing, tracking use, and maintaining control over future uses of a creator’s work.

Jim also describes an audio watermarking approach he has encountered, while acknowledging that he has not independently established how well it works. The discussion is about taking identity and content rights seriously as new business models emerge.

Live Shopping and the Next Media Business

Jim explains what he wants readers to get from Inside the Creator Economy: timely reporting, his interpretation of the news, and ideas they can question. We talk about the differences between email subscribers, LinkedIn newsletter subscribers, and the audience numbers platforms report.

We then explore global creator markets, Whatnot, live shopping, and the role of personality and audience participation in commerce.

TBPN’s combination of a live show, a focused audience, and widely distributed clips gives us another example to examine. We close with local AI tools and a practical encouragement from Jim: keep experimenting.

My key takeaways:

Use these tools to expand what you can create, while giving people a reason to connect with you. Your ideas, judgment, and relationships shape the value of the media business you build.

Key topics

Chapter timestamps

Guest Jim Louderback

Jim Louderback publishes the weekly Inside the Creator Economy newsletter and produces, curates, and moderates creator events around the world. He is the former CEO of VidCon and Revision3, and his career also includes leadership and editorial roles at Discovery Digital Networks, TechTV, and PC Magazine.

Host Rob Greenlee

Rob Greenlee is the founder of Trust Factor Lab, host of New Media Show, and a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair. His work connects podcasting, video, creator platforms, audience trust, and the media business.

AI disclosure

AI tools helped organize and draft these show notes from the completed Episode #689 transcript and edited the full show. Rob Greenlee retains editorial responsibility. The New Media Show is human-hosted with human guests; this episode also includes a disclosed AI-generated Digital Jim video demonstration.

The post The Creator Reset: AI, Trust and What Comes Next | Jim Louderback #689 first appeared on New Media Show.

Your podcast can be available everywhere and still be hard to find. So who controls its future: the creator, the audience, or the platform?

In New Media Show #688, Rob Greenlee welcomes back James Cridland, Editor of Podnews, co-host of the Podnews Weekly Review, and a 2026 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, for a conversation about what Podcast Week in New York City revealed about our industry.

We compare notes on the IAB Podcast Upfronts, CreatorFronts, and a very different NYC Podcast Movement. James also shares his experience at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit.

The week had plenty of energy, but it also exposed real differences in how creators, platforms, and advertisers see podcasting’s future.

Podcast Movement’s Terminal 5 venue brought challenges around meetings, exhibitor space, and crowding.

James argues that the headphone-based sessions worked better than expected. We also reflect on Tom Webster’s tribute to Todd Cochrane and why the industry still needs people willing to speak up when something is wrong.

Podcasting has expanded its distribution. That doesn’t mean it controls where people discover shows.

Sounds Profitable: Tom Webster’s presentation leads us into YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix, where podcasts compete with much more than other podcasts. James Cridland also cautions against confusing whether someone has ever used a platform with where they regularly listen.

A major part of our conversation is measuring media consumption.

James challenges the IAB’s approach to audio and video, while making another important point: tearing down the download without a workable replacement can undermine the business we already have.

James offers a proposal worth discussing: share advertising revenue with podcast apps that provide useful consumption data.

James argues that apps need a financial reason to invest in discovery and better listening experiences. I raise the concern about taking revenue from creators, and we explore whether growing listening could make that trade worthwhile.

Rob and James also discuss open RSS, HLS video, and Podcasting 2.0 as ways to expand access. That includes discovery built around places and local interests, along with AI production tools that help humans make better content.

Adding video should not make the audio listener a second-class audience. The conversation still needs to work when someone cannot see the screen.

The question is how we keep podcasting open to a wide range of voices while competing in a much bigger media world. More reach matters. So do audience trust, creator choice, and a business that can sustain the work.

Key Topics

– Podcast Week NYC: the business summit, upfronts, CreatorFronts, and Podcast Movement

Guest: James Cridland

Editor of Podnews, co-host of the Podnews Weekly Review, and 2026 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee.

– Podnews Daily Newsletter and Podcast: https://podnews.net

Host: Rob Greenlee

– New Media Show on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TheNewMediaShow

AI Disclosure

AI tools helped organize and draft these show notes from the completed Episode #688 transcript, and I hand-edited for clarity and accuracy. The conversation and perspectives are human-led, and Rob Greenlee retains editorial responsibility. The New Media Show is human-hosted with human guests.

The post Podcasting’s Identity Crisis: Who Controls Podcasts Now? | James Cridland #688 first appeared on New Media Show.

Getting views, streams, and downloads is not the same as building a business. Subscribers aren’t automatically customers, and a successful YouTube channel doesn’t necessarily mean you have built something sustainable.

In New Media Show #687, Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee talks with Creator, Educator, Author, and Entrepreneur Roberto Blake, founder of Awesome Creator Academy, about what comes after becoming a content creator and why more creators need to think of themselves as independent media companies rather than defining themselves by one format or platform.

Roberto argues that being a podcaster, YouTuber, streamer, or blogger is increasingly just a distribution choice. The bigger issue is the value you create, the audience relationship you build, and what you actually own.

We get into the shift from audio-first thinking to broader creator media, why professionalism is more about preparation and performance than polished production, and how AI is changing the economics of being a creator.

Roberto sees some of the strongest uses of AI in the operational work around content, including research, data analysis, transcription, organization, editing workflows, and other tasks that can free creators to spend more time on judgment, ideas, and relationships.

A major part of the conversation is about turning attention into a real business.

Roberto describes his framework as “reach, reputation, revenue,” or in a business context, “traffic, trust, transaction.” Getting attention is only the beginning. The real value comes from earning trust and then creating products, services, memberships, intellectual property, or other business models around that relationship.

We also talk about what creators should own. That includes their brand, intellectual property, expertise, direct audience relationships, and the parts of the business that can survive changes at YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or any other platform.

Roberto breaks creator businesses into three broad paths: entertainer, lifestyle brand, and thought leader, with different revenue and growth opportunities for each.

The conversation goes much deeper into AI, human creativity, likeness rights, AI labeling, and synthetic AI media.

Why Roberto believes the bigger risk isn’t simply AI-generated entertainment, but the potential misuse of synthetic media by institutions or people trying to manipulate audiences.

The larger point is simple:

Creators should stop thinking only about the next piece of content and start thinking about what they are building around it.

Key Topics:

Guest: Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake

Awesome Creator Academy

YouTube

Host: Rob Greenlee

AI Disclosure

AI tools helped organize and edit this episode and create the above show notes from the completed Episode #687 transcript. The conversation, perspectives, editorial direction, and final editing were performed, and responsibility for the episode remains human-led. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post Don’t Just Make Videos: Build a Creator Media Company | Roberto Blake #687 first appeared on New Media Show.

Podcast media creator publishers may already have more revenue opportunity than they realize. The challenge is not always finding more listeners. It can be understanding what inventory is actually available to sell, what to sell, whether campaigns will deliver, and where revenue is being lost.

In this episode #686 of the New Media Show, Rob Greenlee talks with Sean Howard, CEO and co-founder of Flightpath.fm, about the growing complexity behind new media podcast advertising and why better forecasting, campaign management, publisher data, and revenue optimization are becoming more important.

Sean explains how Flightpath grew out of a problem he experienced from both sides of the business. As an ad buyer, he found that publishers often did not know how much inventory they really had available. As a publisher, he saw the same problem from the other side: uncertainty about whether sold campaigns would actually deliver. Flightpath was built to bring those pieces together through traffic management, prediction, pacing, and cross-platform revenue visibility.

The conversation also gets into dynamic ad insertion and the value of the podcast back catalog. Sean argues that publishers relying too heavily on baked-in ads may be leaving significant revenue on the table because listeners keep consuming older episodes long after release.

Rob and Sean also discuss a larger issue facing content creator publishers today: platform dependence.

As podcast companies expand across multiple hosting platforms, YouTube, Spotify, video, HLS, and other distribution systems, publishers need better access to their own data and a clearer understanding of the business risk that comes with relying too heavily on any one platform.

The bigger question is whether the next stage of media and podcast revenue growth may come not only from finding more audience, but from better understanding and monetizing the audience publishers already have.

Discussion Highlights

Key Topic Timestamps:

Guest

Host

Listen and Watch

AI Disclosure

AI tools helped organize and edit this episode and create the above show notes from the completed Episode #686 transcript. The conversation, perspectives, editorial direction, and final editing were performed, and responsibility for the episode remains human-led. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post Hidden Revenue: What Media Publishers Are Leaving Behind | Sean Howard, Flightpath #686 first appeared on New Media Show.

As AI makes it easier to create more content, human relationships may become more valuable, not less. 

In Episode #685 of the New Media Show, host and Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee talks with Alex Sanfilippo, founder of PodMatch and host of Podcasting Made Simple, about why relationships between hosts, guests, audiences, collaborators, and communities are becoming an increasingly important part of podcast growth.

The conversation explores podcast guesting, better host-guest matching, AI-assisted workflows, audio and video podcasting, RSS and HLS, creator-owned communities, and why direct audience relationships matter as large platforms gain more control over discovery and monetization.

Human Connection Wins

Alex built PodMatch around a simple problem: podcast hosts could find guests, but finding the “right guest” and managing all the administrative work surrounding an interview took an enormous amount of time.

The goal is to automate the work around the conversation without automating the human connection itself.

Rob and Alex discuss why great podcast conversations create relationships that can continue long after an episode is published.

Better Guests, Better Conversations

A strong podcast guest should arrive ready to lead with value, not simply promote a book, company, or product.

Rob and Alex discuss why:

– Every interview should feel different

Alex also explains how PodMatch is using AI to improve host-guest alignment while reducing research and administrative work.

Audio, Video and the Changing Podcast

The conversation expands into the growing convergence between podcasting and YouTube.

Alex remains audio and RSS-focused but believes podcasting and YouTube are increasingly influencing each other. Podcasting brings depth and long-form conversation while YouTube brings visual discovery and engagement.

Rob and Alex also discuss the HLS video format, alternative enclosures, separate audio and video feeds, and why the current publishing ecosystem can still feel unnecessarily complicated for creators.

Build Relationships You Own

As major platforms change algorithms, monetization rules, and distribution policies, creators have another reason to develop direct relationships with their audiences.

Newsletters, private communities, memberships, events, collaborations, and other owned audience pathways can turn large platforms into discovery and recruiting channels rather than the entire creator business.

Alex sees this community layer becoming an increasingly important part of PodMatch.

Discussion Highlights

– Why human connection becomes more valuable as content expands

Chapter Markers

00:00 When content becomes unlimited, human connection becomes scarce

About Alex Sanfilippo

Alex Sanfilippo is the founder of PodMatch, a platform that connects podcast hosts and guests while streamlining the administrative work around podcast interviews.

He also hosts Podcasting Made Simple, where he helps independent podcast hosts and guests grow their influence, audiences, and businesses.

Guest Links

About the Host

Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, Chair of the Podcast Hall of Fame, Founder of Trust Factor Lab, and longtime new-media executive, creator, strategist, and industry leader.

Listen and Watch

AI Disclosure

AI tools helped organize and edit this episode and create the above show notes from the completed Episode #685 transcript. The conversation, perspectives, editorial direction, and final editing and responsibility for the episode remain human-led. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post Human Audience Growth in the AI Era | Alex Sanfilippo #685 first appeared on New Media Show.

AI can now reproduce a person’s face, voice, movement, and likeness with increasing realism.

The bigger question is becoming: Who gets to control that identity, authorize its use, and potentially get paid when it has commercial value?

In Episode #684 of the New Media Show,  Host Rob Greenlee talks with Anne Kavanagh, co-founder of Royall.ai, about building a new permission and licensing layer around human identity.

The conversation is not about stopping or being anti-AI. It is about establishing something that has largely been missing: proof and authorization before use.

Your Identity Becomes an Asset You Control

Royall.ai is developing what Anne describes as a biometric vault where people can register elements of their identity, including voice, face, likeness, and body motion.

Those assets can be fingerprinted and watermarked, creating the foundation for detecting use, approving or rejecting it, and potentially licensing it commercially.

That changes the discussion from simply asking whether AI can clone someone to asking whether the person actually gave permission.

A creator could potentially say:

Protection and Opportunity

The same technology designed to identify unauthorized use could also create legitimate new markets for human identity.

Anne describes a future where AI companies, studios, agencies, platforms, and brands could license verified human data rather than simply collecting material from the public internet.

Creators could choose whether their voice, face, movement, or content can be used for AI training and receive compensation when they opt in.

This becomes especially important as synthetic media becomes indistinguishable from human media. Rob also raises another possibility: as AI-generated content becomes abundant, verified or certified human-created content may itself become more valuable.

Podcast Archives Create Another Rights Problem

The discussion gets particularly relevant to podcasting. A podcast owner may control thousands of hours of archived conversations, but that does not necessarily mean the owner has the right to license every guest’s voice for AI training.

Rob explains that the New Media Show archive has previously attracted interest for conversational AI training, but licensing complete conversations would require permission from the guests whose voices appear in them.

Royall.ai is exploring infrastructure that could help identify those participants, request consent, manage permissions, and create licensing transactions across large content libraries.

That could become a significant issue as decades of podcast, video, music, and creator archives become valuable training material.

Discussion Highlights

Chapter Timestamp Markers

00:00 Who controls your likeness and voice identity?

Anne Kavanagh Guest Links

Royall.ai is currently onboarding users through an early-access process, with registration, fingerprinting, watermarking, detection capabilities, and enterprise/API integrations discussed toward the end of the episode.

Royall.ai

Host, Rob Greenlee and Show Links

New Media Show

New Media Show on YouTube

Rob Greenlee

Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn

Podcast Hall of Fame

AI Disclosure

AI tools helped organize and edit the episode to remove filler words; this description was created from the completed full transcript of episode #684. The recorded conversation, human performances, perspectives, editorial direction, and final responsibility for the episode remain with Rob Greenlee and Anne Kavanagh. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post Own Your Identity: Who Controls Your Voice, and Likeness? | Anne Kavanagh, Royall.ai #684 first appeared on New Media Show.

Podcasting has one advantage that much of digital media struggles to maintain: trust.

In Episode #683 of the New Media Show, Rob Greenlee talks with Mike Kadin, CEO and co-founder of RedCircle.  What does that trust mean for podcast advertising as AI, video, HLS, YouTube, Spotify, and changing audience behavior reshape the business?

Long-form shows create a different relationship between creators and audiences than short-form social content. That relationship has always been one of the reasons host-read podcast advertising can work so well.

But what happens when AI can recreate the host’s voice?

Mike makes an important distinction. The value of a host-read ad is not simply hearing a familiar voice. It comes from the host’s language, personality, experience, humor, and actual judgment about the product. RedCircle does not use AI-generated versions of creators to perform host-read advertising.

Mike believes cloning the host’s voice without the actual human endorsement could undermine the very trust that makes the advertising valuable.

Authentic Host Reads Still Matter

Rob and Mike talk about the difference between reading advertising copy and genuinely recommending something a creator has used.

RedCircle has seen similar shows, with similar audience sizes, run by the same advertiser and using the same talking points, produce very different results. One of the biggest differences can be the quality and believability of the host read.

That also puts responsibility on creators to work with products they can credibly talk about.

Mike explains that RedCircle will sometimes hear from a creator who tried a sponsor’s product and did not like it.

Rather than force an endorsement, the company can take that feedback back to the advertiser and cancel the spot. That kind of process helps protect the relationship between the creator and audience.

Using AI to Find Better Brand Matches

Mike also talks about a newer RedCircle capability called Show IQ.

Over the years of running campaigns, RedCircle has accumulated information on its creators’ interests and brand affinities, as well as historical campaign performance. Show IQ uses that information to help identify creators who may be a natural fit for a particular advertiser.

This is an example of AI being used behind the scenes to improve the match rather than replacing the human doing the endorsement. The goal is to put advertisers with creators who can actually speak credibly about their products.

Spotify, YouTube and Control of Podcast Monetization

The conversation shifts to the growing influence of large consumption platforms. Spotify is experimenting with ways for listeners to move past advertising more easily. YouTube has already offered similar jump-ahead behavior around portions of videos that viewers commonly skip.

Mike does not see this as some unexpected attack on podcasting. Spotify and YouTube have built massive distribution platforms and naturally want to control more of the economics that happen inside them.

For creators, diversification becomes increasingly important.

A creator can use YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms for distribution, but should also keep building direct relationships through websites, newsletters, subscriptions, and communities. No single distribution platform can be expected to always put the creator’s interests first.

RedCircle Is Moving Into Video

RedCircle has also started expanding beyond its traditional audio focus. Creators can now upload video through RedCircle and send it to YouTube, an expansion of its earlier audio-to-YouTube tools.

Mike says YouTube was the obvious first priority because that is where the largest existing video audience is today. RedCircle is also watching Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, and HLS as podcasting becomes increasingly multi-format. The advertising systems will eventually need to evolve along with the content.

HLS Creates New Advertising Questions

A significant part of the conversation focuses on HLS and Apple’s new video-podcast approach in this episode.

Podcast advertising has traditionally been built around audio downloads. The video introduces a much more complex environment.

An Apple Podcasts episode may still automatically download its audio before the listener ever presses play.

If that listener later watches the video version, the advertising decision may already have been made. That makes traditional real-time programmatic video advertising harder to apply to podcast video.

For now, audio advertising may become a common advertising format, whether someone is listening or watching. That works technically, but it is not necessarily the best video experience.

Rob and Mike discuss the need for a new type of podcast video advertising that works whether someone hears the ad, watches it, or moves between both experiences.

Audio and Video Are Converging, But Not Cleanly

Rob raises a question he is dealing with directly on the New Media Show. Should a show have one combined audio-video experience, or should creators continue producing separate audio versions?

The New Media Show has distributed separate audio and video feeds for years. HLS makes it easier to move between listening and viewing, but that convergence can also lead to compromises.

Great video production does not automatically guarantee the best audio experience. The reverse is also true. Mike agrees there is a reasonable argument for preserving more flexibility between the two formats.

Measurement Is Getting Harder

Podcast measurement was already complicated.

Now creators may have traditional podcast downloads, Spotify streams, YouTube views, Apple video consumption, social views, and various advertising impressions.

Those numbers do not all mean the same thing. That creates an operational problem for creators trying to sell advertising and for brands trying to understand what they purchased. Mike believes technology needs to simplify this increasingly fragmented environment.

Mike compares it to the music industry, where tools were developed to distribute music and aggregate results across many different services. Creator media increasingly needs the same kind of cross-platform infrastructure.

What Is a Podcast Now? The episode also returns to a question the New Media Show has discussed for years.

What exactly is a podcast? Mike admits he has two answers.

As a longtime software engineer and RSS believer,  Mike still thinks of a podcast as episodic media distributed through RSS.

As the CEO of a podcast technology and advertising company, he sees younger people entering the business who do not know what RSS is and think of a podcast as the kind of long-form conversational content they see on YouTube.

At some point, audience behavior begins defining the medium.

Rob and Mike also discuss industry efforts such as the AMP work around definitions and measurement.

Mike supports efforts to build standards but says they only become truly meaningful if the major platforms where people actually consume podcasts implement them.

Where Podcasting Goes Next

Mike believes the industry has to follow audience behavior. Creators are becoming multi-channel because audiences already are.

Audio, video, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RSS apps, and social platforms are increasingly parts of the same creator-media business. The opportunity is to build better tools that allow creators to distribute, monetize, and measure it all without having to manage the complexity themselves.

HLS is one part of that transition.

The larger change is podcasting becoming a much broader medium for audio and video creators while trying to preserve the trust that made it valuable in the first place.

Discussion Highlights:

– Why long-form podcasting creates deeper audience trust

Chapter Timestamp Markers

00:00 Podcasting, trust and long-form media

Mike Kadin Guest Links

RedCircle: https://redcircle.com

Host and Show Links

New Media Show

New Media Show on YouTube

Rob Greenlee

Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn

Podcast Hall of Fame

AI Disclosure

AI tools were used to assist with organizing and editing to remove filler words; this episode description was created from the completed full transcript of episode #683. The recorded conversation, human performances, perspectives, editorial direction, and final responsibility for the episode remain with Rob Greenlee and Mike Kadin. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post Trust, AI and the Future of Podcast Advertising | Mike Kadin, RedCircle #683 first appeared on New Media Show.

When AI content becomes abundant, what becomes scarce?

In Episode #682 of the New Media Show, Host, Rob Greenlee talks with growth and brand strategist Jaymi Bauer. Jaymi is CEO and co-founder of Vaquera Group, creator of Resonance Design, and founder of a new women’s vitality venture called Reign.Care.

She and Rob previously worked together at Microsoft during the Zune and Xbox eras, giving both a long view of how technology continually reshapes media and human behavior.

The conversation is not anti-AI. It is about understanding where AI is powerful and where human creators may still have the advantage.

The Human Signal

Jaymi states that humans feel trust before they intellectually recognize it. We respond to tone, presence, energy, emotion, authenticity, and whether something feels genuine.  AI can increasingly reproduce human language, imagery, voices, and creative patterns, but Jaymi believes audiences will continue seeking something deeper: content rooted in real human experience.

Her advice to creators is simple: Become better at AI while becoming even more human. AI as Amplifier, Not the Source

Rob and Jaymi explore AI as a creative and production layer rather than the original source of meaning.

AI can:

Research faster

But the strongest output still begins with a strong human seed: an idea, experience, perspective, story, or creative intention.

Jaymi shares her experience of heavily using AI on a book proposal. The result was polished, but she felt it had become hollow and disconnected from her own creative voice. That became a reminder that efficiency does not automatically create resonance.

Why Human Content May Become Premium

As synthetic media becomes harder to distinguish from human-created media, Rob raises the possibility that creators may eventually label content as human-hosted or human-created, rather than simply labeling AI content.

Jaymi believes genuine human interaction may eventually feel more valuable precisely because it becomes less common.

That could increase the value of:

Live conversations

The future may not be human versus AI. It may be human creativity amplified by AI.

Creators Need AI Literacy

Jaymi strongly advises creators not to ignore AI. Her view is that creators should learn the tools, experiment with them, understand their limitations, and explore what they make possible. But they also need stronger critical thinking and editorial judgment.

Rob and Jaymi discuss how experienced professionals may have an advantage here because they have lived through multiple cycles in technology, media, business, and the economy.

Knowing when AI is wrong, when to stop refining, what matters, and what audiences actually value may become increasingly important skills.

AI Changes Discovery Too. AI is not only creating content. It is increasingly sitting between creators and audiences.

Rob discusses how platforms such as YouTube use AI to analyze media, understand content, personalize recommendations, and decide who should see what.

That means creators are entering an environment where AI may influence:

Creation

The creator still provides the human idea, but AI increasingly shapes how that idea reaches the world.

A More Interactive Media Future

The conversation also explores AI-powered audience participation. Rob describes emerging platforms where synthetic personalities, expert knowledge bases, and human audience members can participate in shared conversations.

Instead of traditional one-way media, future shows could include creators, audiences, and AI agents discussing topics together.

That could make podcasts, livestreams, sports media, education, and communities considerably more interactive.

Discussion Highlights

Chapter Markers

00:00 Why the human signal matters

Jaymi Bauer Guest Links:

Jaymi Bauer on Substack

“The Human Signal”

Vaquera Group

Reign

About the Host:  Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, Chair of the Podcast Hall of Fame, founder of Trust Factor Lab, and longtime new-media executive, creator, strategist, and industry leader.

Through The New Media Show, Rob explores the changing intersection of podcasting, video, creator-led media, artificial intelligence, platforms, audience ownership, trust, monetization, and the future of human-created media.

Host and Show Links

New Media Show

New Media Show on YouTube

Rob Greenlee

Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn

Podcast Hall of Fame

AI Disclosure

AI tools were used to assist with organizing and editing to remove filler words; this episode description was created from the completed full transcript of episode #682. The recorded conversation, human performances, perspectives, editorial direction, and final responsibility for the episode remain with Rob Greenlee and Jaymi Bauer. The New Media Show is human-hosted.

The post The Human Signal: What Becomes Valuable in AI Creation Era | Jaymi Bauer #682 first appeared on New Media Show.

In Episode 681 of the New Media Show, host Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee welcomes Alban Brooke, Head of Marketing at Buzzsprout, for a deep conversation about one of the biggest structural changes in podcasting: the evolution of podcast hosting from audio-file distribution to a broader audio-and-video creator infrastructure.

For most of podcasting’s history, the hosting model was relatively straightforward. A creator uploaded an audio file, the host generated an RSS feed, and that feed distributed the episode to listening apps worldwide.

That podcast hosting model is changing.

Video is once again becoming a significant part of podcasting, and podcast hosting platforms are being asked to do much more than store an MP3 and maintain an RSS feed. They increasingly need to manage video encoding, HLS streaming, direct platform connections, YouTube publishing, Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, transcripts, analytics, AI-assisted publishing tools, and the traditional audio experience simultaneously.

Buzzsprout, which launched in 2009 as an audio-only podcast host, has now made a major move into video. Alban explains that the turning point was Apple’s decision to support HLS video streaming into Apple Podcasts.

Once Apple committed to HLS, Buzzsprout saw an opportunity to preserve one of podcast hosting’s original promises:

“Upload once and let the hosting platform handle the complexity of getting the show everywhere.”

Buzzsprout’s current video workflow allows creators to upload video and distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube while continuing to deliver audio to traditional podcast apps.

The technology underneath that process, however, has become much more complicated.

A podcast host may now be managing RSS feeds, HLS playlists, multiple video resolutions, platform APIs, direct uploads, audio extraction, transcripts, and the different requirements of Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, iHeart, and other services.

Alban argues that creators should not have to understand most of that.

That leads Rob and Alban into a larger discussion about RSS and what it still represents.

RSS itself is not magical, Alban says. What matters is what RSS enables: a direct and portable connection between creators and their audiences.  A creator using an open podcast feed can switch from one hosting company to another without rebuilding their audience from scratch. The relationship is not entirely controlled by a recommendation algorithm or a single platform.  Alban contrasts this with YouTube and other social platforms, where algorithms ultimately determine how much of a creator’s content reaches subscribers.

A creator can build a large audience on a platform and still experience dramatic changes in reach when the algorithm, product strategy, or monetization model changes.

Podcasting offers something different.

Alban describes media distribution as a spectrum ranging from discovery to delivery. At one end are platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, which are extremely effective at helping users discover content. The platform decides what it believes each person wants to see next.

At the other end are systems such as RSS and email, where the user intentionally subscribes and expects to receive what that creator publishes.

The opportunity for modern creators may be to use both.

YouTube, social video platforms, and algorithmic platforms can enable discovery. RSS can provide reliable delivery and audience portability after that relationship is established.

That combination may become one of podcasting’s greatest advantages.

HLS, RSS and the Future of more Open Video Podcasting

Rob and Alban explore how HLS video could extend those same open-distribution principles into video.

Apple’s implementation currently involves a direct API relationship, but the podcast ecosystem is also experimenting with the alternate enclosure tag in RSS, which can place another media format inside the RSS feed.

Buzzsprout has already experimented with alternate enclosures on selected shows, although Alban explains that the company is approaching broader implementation carefully because video creates dramatically larger bandwidth demands than audio.

A bot downloading thousands of MP3 files is one problem. A bot repeatedly requesting multi-gigabyte video assets is another larger issue.

The larger objective, however, remains open distribution.

Alban believes HLS has the potential to enable multiple podcast applications to support video without forcing creators to confine their entire video audience to a single closed platform.

Can Video Damage the Audio Experience?

The conversation then turns to one of the most important creative questions raised by video podcasting. What happens to audio listeners when the video version becomes the source for both experiences?

Alban shares an example of watching a video podcast on Netflix where George Clooney and the host repeatedly discussed an object visible on camera without ever explaining what it was.

A viewer understood the conversation. An audio listener would have had no idea what they were discussing. That is exactly the kind of problem Alban wants creators to avoid.

His recommendation is that podcasts remain audio-first in their communication, even when video is an important part of the production.

That does not mean ignoring video.

Creators can use cameras, sets, graphics, demonstrations, lighting, and other visual elements. But when something important is happening on screen, the host should provide enough verbal context that the audio listener can still follow the conversation.

Rob raises the other side of the issue.

There is a real difference between producing a video podcast and producing a highly visual YouTube show.

YouTube creators may use graphics, demonstrations, rapid editing, screen captures, text, and visual storytelling that cannot realistically be translated into audio. If every visual element must work perfectly for someone with their eyes closed, video creativity can become constrained.

That may eventually create two related but distinct production approaches: shows built as unified audio/video podcasts and shows designed primarily as visual media.

Why Platforms Want Video

Alban believes the major platforms have obvious reasons for encouraging video.  Video keeps audiences looking at the screen.

YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms benefit when users remain inside their applications, continually moving from one piece of content to the next.

Short-form vertical video takes this even further.

Alban says he deliberately limits his own use of platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels because he finds the experience almost too effective at holding attention.

Audio works differently.

A podcast can accompany the listener while running, driving, traveling, cleaning, mowing the lawn, or simply living life.

Alban describes audio as a companion to life, while highly addictive video shorts platforms will increasingly compete to become the dominant activity itself.

We should remain strongly optimistic about audio.

Why Apple’s Move Changed the Market

Rob asks why Apple chose this moment to place renewed emphasis on video, even though video podcasts have technically existed within Apple’s ecosystem for many years.

Alban points to several forces coming together. YouTube has aggressively embraced podcasts and repeatedly highlighted the enormous amount of podcast viewing happening across its platform.

Spotify has expanded its video strategy.

Meanwhile, members of the open podcasting community have spent years exploring HLS as a more practical way of distributing video.

Once Apple embraced HLS, Buzzsprout concluded that the technology had enough platform support to justify a major investment.

Buzzsprout then built its video product around simplifying distribution across Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and traditional audio apps.

Why 1080p Video Matters

Buzzsprout also decided to support 1080p video, something Rob sees as increasingly important as podcasts move from phones and laptops onto large television screens. HLS can provide different video streams depending on the device and connection.

A mobile device (phone, pad, or glasses) may not need the same resolution as a large television or large-screen laptop or desktop computer.

But as Apple Podcasts expands onto Apple TV and YouTube continues to report substantial podcast consumption on television screens, creators need source video that looks good in the living room.

Rob and Alban agree that this is another sign that podcast distribution is becoming much broader than that of traditional listening apps.

Audio Is Not Going Away

Despite Buzzsprout’s investment in video, Alban does not believe every podcast needs cameras. Some content is inherently better as audio. Scripted audio, documentary storytelling, intimate conversations, educational programming, and many other formats can deliver everything the audience needs without video.

Alban does not believe audio needs a technological gimmick to survive.

“The human voice and a compelling story.”

Good audio recorded decades ago can still be powerful today because the idea, voice, and storytelling remain meaningful.

Video is therefore additive rather than a replacement for audio.

Is Podcast Hosting Becoming a Commodity?

Rob then challenges Alban with another industry question:

Simply storing a media file is no longer difficult. Most hosting platforms can generate RSS feeds, distribute episodes, and provide common publishing features.

Alban agrees that hosting, narrowly defined as file storage, can look commoditized. But he argues that this misses the bigger job a podcast-hosting company should perform.

Buzzsprout sees its role as helping creators successfully navigate the entire process.

That includes technology, education, human support, distribution, publishing assistance, video, analytics, transcripts, and reducing the emotional and technical friction involved in putting something meaningful into the world. The competitive advantage is not simply storing the file. It is helping the creator succeed.

AI Should Remove Work, Not the Human

That philosophy carries directly into the episode’s discussion about artificial intelligence.

Buzzsprout already uses AI to help creators generate titles, descriptions, social content, blog material, chapter markers, and transcripts. Alban is comfortable with AI handling parts of production that creators may not enjoy. Buzzsprout’s own materials identify its Co-Host AI tools as assisting with publishing tasks, including titles, descriptions, chapters, and supporting content.

What he does not want AI to replace is the reason many people became creators in the first place.

Alban enjoys researching an idea, thinking about it, writing, talking with people, recording conversations, and producing something that reflects human experience.

If AI can clean audio, transcribe the episode, or reduce repetitive production work, that can be useful. 

If it replaces the host, opinion, conversation, or creative process entirely, something important may be lost. Alban compares his preferred relationship with AI to using a calculator.

The technology is valuable. Yet, blindly refusing to use it entirely could be unnecessarily limiting. But just because a technology can perform a task does not mean the creator should hand over every task.

The important question is:

“Which parts of creating matter to you enough that you want to remain the person doing them?”

AI, Disclosure and Audience Trust

The deeper issue is trust.

Alban describes hearing what he believed was an AI-generated host-read advertisement in a podcast he regularly listened to. When he later asked the creator about AI and received a categorical denial of using it, Alban’s confidence in the show changed.

The problem was not simply that AI may have been used.  The problem was the perception that the creator was not being transparent about it.

Rob and Alban agree that disclosure becomes increasingly important as synthetic voices, AI-written scripts, avatars, automated media, and cloned personalities become harder to distinguish from human-created content.

“Rob suggests that the industry may eventually move beyond labeling AI toward verifying or certifying what is human.”

As synthetic AI-generated audio and video content becomes more common, audiences may increasingly value signals showing that a conversation, performance, appearance, or relationship involves real humans.

That could increase the importance of live events, face-to-face meetings, physical communities, concerts, coffee shops, and other experiences where human presence is difficult to fake.

The Return of Offline Experiences

The episode broadens into a discussion about younger generations and technology.

Alban notes that some younger people are becoming interested in non-connected devices, point-and-shoot cameras, film cameras, books, and other technologies that do not constantly demand attention.

Rob sees similar interest developing around discontinued devices such as the Microsoft Zune portable media player devices.

The larger trend may represent a reaction to always-connected life.

Technology gives creators unprecedented reach, but human relationships still develop through attention, responsiveness, shared experiences, and time spent together.

That principle also connects back to podcasting.

Podcasting’s open architecture allows content to flow across applications and devices while maintaining a direct creator-to-audience relationship.

As Alban sees it, the strongest future for podcasting combines the best of both worlds:

“Open delivery through podcasting, algorithmic discovery through larger platforms, video when it adds value, audio when audio is enough, AI where it removes friction, and humans at the center of the creative relationship.”

Topics Covered in This Episode

Chapter Timestamp Markers

Guest Links: Alban Brooke, Head of Marketing, Buzzsprout

Host, Rob Greenlee, and New Media Show Links

New Media Show: https://newmediashow.com

AI Disclosure Note

The post How Podcast Distribution Is Changing | Alban Brooke, Buzzsprout #681 first appeared on New Media Show.