Hey everybody, welcome to Poduty in the News for Tuesday, February—
March 3rd, 2026. I got a fresh haircut. They took out half
my brain. I've got Phil Better, the podcast mogul, joining me
today. Phil, do you know what time it is? Oh, I know what
time it is. It's time for Poduty in the News.
Oh, it's time for Poduty and
the News. Poduty and
the News. The only
live news podcast about podcasting from
the States.
Poduty
and the News. Poduty and the News. The only
live news podcast about podcasting from
the States.
Oh, it's the only live news podcast about podcasting from
the stage, all the way from north of the border. Phil Better,
welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I wish I could
be in the stage like I was once before, but
I got snowed in, so I'm stuck here in my little igloo up in
Canada. It has to be warming up a little bit up there. Yeah, it
is. Today was a nice day. It probably was about I think it would be
considered 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
I believe that is what you guys use, uh, down south. But yeah,
we have giant eagles, so as a grocery store— eagles. I apologize.
Also, it is America. We're just— everything is giant eagles around here.
Jeff, let's jump into the news because this is what they're listening to. They want
to hear the amazing news you tell. It's so straight
because it's time for Poduty in the News. Do you want to do news, or
should we, should we at least know who is Phil Better and why is
Phil Better qualified to comment on the news? Let's go
about that. All right, so who am I? Um, I am a
podcast, um, I call myself the Podcast Mogul.
Um, hey Maurice, it's nice for you to be here. But, uh, call myself the
Podcast Mogul because I have been working in the podcast industry as both
an independent and working for agencies for close to or
over a decade now, working,
helping individuals, entrepreneurs, and brands grow their
podcast, both in downloads and in
audience, so that they can have objective,
actionable insights on what it is they have for their
podcast. So currently I am working with brands through an
agency and I specify in paid
media. So I can help you understand the pod-to-pod
paid media landscape. That's what I am currently doing. This is why I am
objectively able to talk about the news,
specifically pod news. I don't talk about any other news except for
pod news. And yeah, so if you want my opinion
on who's wearing what to what global event, I can't tell you.
I can tell you what podcasts are going to be on it. It's Phil
Better, the podcast mogul. Thepodcastmogul.com. Is there a the
in front of it? Uh, I believe so. I can't— let me just
double check. It's been a while, uh, since I've done
my— uh, yes, thepodcastmogul.com. The Podcast Mogul. I
was just there. I was going to send you some notes on the site, the,
the rebuild, the rebrand that you've done recently. Yes, it is very
good. The website is very professional. I was
really impressed when I went there, just seeing what was new with Feel Better.
But thepodcastmogul.com, check it out. The website looks—
it's completely different than it was the last time I saw it. Um, it is
like— so the first time was myself, and I have no webs—
I have zero credibility. I use my voice, as people can say.
Um, I have a voice for radio, a voice for storytelling, so that's how I
do stuff. Um, but hired a local
Montreal agency. She's wonderful. Elaine
Tsung of Manifest Dreams, I believe. ElaineTsung.com.
You can find her stuff. She does amazing work. She has been
incredible. She's fantastic. Check her out. You
will not be disappointed. She does fantastic work. And I've worked with
her. She's done this and I've helped her
with some of her events. Anyways, let's, let's get into the news. Enough about me.
I can't, I hate talking about myself. My God. That's enough about me. Let's talk
about me. Let's go to our first story. Of course I chose
a wrestling one. Phil loves wrestling. We got the Ring of Honor
free taping hits capacity. The Ring of Honor hosted a free
standalone taping in Jacksonville that quickly reached
capacity. Even without a major media rights deal
secured, the promotion used the live taping to build demand,
capture registrations, and strengthen brand loyalty through in-person
engagement. This was a free ticketed event. There was
registration, but they fully maxed out registration.
And, uh, that to me, this is the power of podcasting
in a niche, niche that you already love. Yeah. And then in a place
where there's already the fans of wrestling, if you're doing a wrestling
podcast, you know, show up where the fans are. Oh yeah,
yeah, this— so, um, ROH
is also tied with AEW. There's like some connection there.
And, uh, right now AEW and WWE are the two
major, uh, wrestling corporations right now. But you
have, you have ROH, you have TNA, you
have New Japan, you have AAA, you have
CMLL, you have a whole bunch, right? And so
ROH is the kind of like the— you could call it the minors, if
you will. It's still, it's still independent, it's still amazing. And the fact
that they were able to sell out a show showcases how much the demand
for wrestling is.. And
like, oh my God, it
is, it is, it's huge. I love it. And the fact that they were able
to collect all those emails as well. Like, just imagine if
you were a podcaster there and it holds 3,000 people. Let's say
the venue holds 3,000 people. You're a podcaster, you get 1%
of those people. That's like 300 people, right? Or 30, even
30 people. That's 30 new people listening to your
podcast. That, and they tell 30 of their friends because they're in different forums
and, uh, and in Facebook groups and different thread communities and
all this. It's, it's insane. I love it. This is a
chance, like, especially for wrestling podcasts. Instead of focusing on the big
guys, look at the independents, look at the smaller venues,
smaller podcast, smaller, um, wrestling events, and
you can create amazing fans. I only
know one thing about wrestling, and Billy Corgan
owns one of the— one of those leagues, NWA.
And so again, nothing that we talk more about on this show
is go to where your audience is. If you're already
a fan of wrestling and somebody's going to have a live wrestling
event, you're going to draw in people from your community who love wrestling and want
to talk about it, want to listen to the stories. Hear that inside, you
know, those inside stories about being on the road, setting up the ring and,
you know, the fights that happen, the storylines. People get
immersed into those storylines. And if you're a fan of that and you're passionate
about telling that, you will find your audience just
locally. You'll find local wrestling fans who want to talk about what you talk
about. Oh yeah, it's, it's, it's go where your niche is. And
that's the number one rule. That's what they say, the
riches are in the niches. Yes, something
like that. Let's go to story number 2. This is a
special one. The Women in Podcasting Awards open nominations with
an affordable People's Choice model designed to elevate
women's voices with structured nominations and voting
phases, sponsor visibility, and media exposure. The
initiative strengthens authority through recognition and
community-driven validation. And I have a special video here. I'm going to play that
real quick. Hi, Jennifer Henczel here of the Women Podcasters Awards.
I'm so excited to announce that nominations are now open for this
year's awards. We're heading into our third year of celebrating
and elevating women's voices globally and across the podcasting
industry. If you're a woman podcaster, producer, or expert
guest, now is the time to submit your nomination so we can shine
a spotlight on your inspiring voice and message. In our first
year, we had over 400 nominees and over 15,000
votes, and momentum keeps growing. Join us in honoring
the creativity, connection, and impact of women in
podcasting. Nominate your podcast or guest expertise today
at womenpodcasters.com. Let's celebrate the power of women's
voices together. Womenpodcasters.com. Phil's raising
the roof over there. I am so happy. I love
this. So I made a thread post
earlier this— well, last month, I guess, or like
within the last 2 weeks about the 2 niches that
are underrepresented, but growing
in listenership. So I'm slurring my words. I'm
just so excited. I can barely do 2 things at once. But the
2 things that are growing are the female
audience, is growing faster than the male audience and
the plus 60 community. So like if you make a
podcast for women in their 60s and
older, you have the chance to grow your podcast like exponentially
growth with both audience and downloads. So
like seeing an award ceremony for just
women and celebrating the women podcasters
that really kind of like helped grow the industry. Because if
we didn't get serial and the true crime, which is
primarily driven by women, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Like, again, women have grown this community so
incredibly. Serial podcast exploded on the scene and really shone a
light on how much reach a podcast can get, how big
of an audience a podcast can attract. And
Sarah Koenig was just incredible in that time
period, the way she captured America's attention through the
story, this episodic series. The world was talking about that
show, and that was a podcast, just produced in a studio,
a studio apartment, week after week was there,
built the audience, built the following, and really drove
podcasting to another level. So I want to make a shout out because we
don't we don't see where I'm, where I'm posting, people, uh, people are watching. So
I want to shout out Alex, Mark, and DR,
uh, from the, uh, Podcast Morning Chat crew. They're, they're watching live
on Facebook, specifically on mine. So hey to you guys.
Hey, hey. I'll listen to them probably 3 to 4 times a week. I catch
it. I have about a 45-minute commute, so I can just about fit a
whole episode in. Podcast Morning Chat, for those of you out
there Different topics every day of the week, different focuses,
different subjects. Sometimes it's why is this podcast working? Sometimes
it's legal advice for podcasters. They're always covering 5
different things every week. You'll learn, you'll pick up one thing an episode, I guarantee
it. Oh yeah, yeah. I have learned so much for
it. The, the, the, the earlier it is, is the harder for me to reach,
but I will be getting onto their podcast back soon. Uh, but yes, I want
to say a shout out to them, the, the Podcast Morning Crew. It's a
great, uh, if you can't catch it live, you can always catch it on
the, uh, on the audio afterwards. It's usually within a few hours
it's released, but it's recorded live at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time.
But anyways, getting back to this, uh, I love
this. Uh, I think more, uh, obviously males have dominated
the industry for so long. We do
need, uh, more women in the industry to bring that different
viewpoint. Obviously more minorities. Because it is growing in
other countries, right? So it is amazing
and I love it. I think it's great. I'm going to be
actually probably telling a few of the podcasts that I work
with at my company, at the agency. They are
female-driven, hosted, and that's— I'm going to actually probably drop a line
and say, hey, we should check this out and be one of the podcasts we
do suggest because we do have some female-hosted podcasts anyways. Yeah, I
love this. Uh, if you have a podcast and it's— you're, you're a
woman, make sure you apply. Womenpodcasters.com. We're
going to— is it football or football? That's what Americans want to know.
The Guardian records a Football Weekly live at South by
Southwest. The Guardian brought its Football Weekly podcast to South by
Southwest for its first ever U.S. live taping,
placing its show directly inside one of the most influential
cultural festivals in the world. Rather than relying solely on
digital distribution, The Guardian positioned its podcast in the middle of
a high-attention environment to strengthen authority
and brand presence. It's just another example of
going to where your audience is, producing a live show,
and just immersing yourself in the moment, in the experience of the
World Cup being in the States. Oh yeah, no, this is
freaking genius because One, you have the opportunity to
become the football, if
you will, you know, European
football leader. If you are talking about it, like,
let's say you are— just look at the
Olympics, right? The huge influx
of female fans in the Olympics because due to
the Team Canada, Team USA women's hockey
game, right? Huge. Like, it built off the back of Heated
Rivalry, right, which goes to the, the lady
books, uh, the type of books that the ladies love. Those— I don't want to
call them smut books, but those romantic type books,
right? Built that— built up to, uh, Heated Rivalry being such
a huge, uh, uh,
event, which led to more women watching hockey,
right? It's the same thing with, uh, this, uh, with— if
you— more women in in podcasting and all that. I think
it's wonderful. It's wonderful. I'm rambling now because I'm
so excited. It's wonderful. Yeah, football. We'll go
from football to football, back to football. We're
going— there we go, American football. We had a
C-suite experience at the Super Bowl where they brought
in keynotes, breakout panels, and guess who was
one of the main events during this like breakout
session before the Super Bowl was the Acquired podcast. They
hosted sessions, they recorded some material, some
episodes, and they just made the pregame the day
before this very exclusive, very high-end experience.
But part of that experience was podcasting. They
incorporated podcasts into the stage that the world
focuses on for one day a year. They built this experience,
this high-end experience, and they didn't just have bands
or magicians or comedians. They had podcasts as
part of the entertainment. And to me, that's the
biggest signal here, is that podcasting as a live event
is now the main entertainment at major events. Oh yeah,
no, this is huge. Though that
podcast specifically do a huge,
huge, uh, uh,
revenue, um, because of, uh, the events that they do. Because
they have like master classes and stuff like that and do
smaller events, and they, they bring
in money to sponsors to pay for the
event, right? So them getting headlined over
at, uh, the Super Bowl or throwing a, an event
in cohabitation, like at the same time as the, uh, the Super
Bowl is huge. And it is of course
again cementing mainstream appeal for the podcast,
um, and how great podcasting is. Because even
if people putting— that's like millions of dollars just to
put that together for that event at the Super Bowl,
and that's big dollars behind it, right? So that, that
is insane. You know, 10 years ago you would never see
a podcast as part of a conference or part of an
event or part of a trade show or a part of a
major event with the NFL. But more and more, instead
of having just a panel of 4 experts who answer a couple of
questions, they're structuring those panel sessions now
as podcast recordings. They're bringing their audience, they're bringing
the fans. They're bringing the host of the podcast to do
a show instead of just a sounding board of 4
experts. You're getting an episode of a podcast you're probably listening
to because you're already there immersed in that type of
media, that type of conversation. And now you're getting to see that show
live. You're getting to be there for a
recording of a particular podcast. It's, it's just such a power play
we're seeing everywhere in conferences. Events and things like
this? It's phenomenal. And I love it.
And with the rise of AI and the hatred towards— not hatred,
but dislike towards AI as well, or AI video
now, people will be more enjoying the
in-person events. So yeah, I love it. I think there's a big
win and you, Jeff, are primed to hit a
big win because you have such an amazing studio. Remember, you need
to go to podduty.com, but book your
podcast at podduty.com today. I just
redid jeffrevilla.com. Check it out, jeffrevilla.com. And
I will say, about a week ago, you know who started hitting
on the future is analog very
hard? Gary Vee. Gary Vee has just started hitting
on— as we get close, here's a quote. I'm gonna quote Gary Vee, so I
apologize if I get this wrong, but As we get closer to 2050,
the world's going to look a lot more like 1850, that
people are so hungry for in-person events, in-person
experiences. They want to do the live thing, and the thing they do
live will be the things that they document online. They—
people are revolting against AI content.
They're revolting against bots answering comments in their
own feed. They're revolting against the slop that's
just being dumped. They want real human
connection. They want to sit with their neighbors. They want to have a beer, listen
to a podcast, or do something besides doomscroll
all night. And these analog moments, these things that you have to
be present for or you're going to miss it, that's what the future
is going to look like in 5 to 10 years. And I think it's moving
faster than we all can imagine with the way the, the
news cycle moves so fast. I think people waking up from their cell
phone addictions and craving human experience,
human connection, is, is snowballing, and it
may peak as early as this summer. Oh yeah, no, I,
uh, I, I still say it's a bit off. It's when the
bubble happens, when the bubble bursts, or the AI bubble burst. But
anyways, that's some, uh, fear-mongering in this. But yes, I agree with you, we
are moving towards I have to agree with Gary Vee again, moving towards a
more analog. I think podcasting— there
was an article I read that talked about
someone watch, kind of listening to a podcast on
TV with someone, because that's how you have to do it. But you have to
figure out how you can make it consumable
for your audience with two people sitting on the couch. And once
you figure that out, you have an amazing podcast. But anyways, Jeff, Let's move to
the next, uh, story here. Let's keep it rolling, keep it
going. Let's go to— oh, I like this story. This is Home
Assist Meetup. This happened in Cologne in Germany. It
drew 150 attendees. This community-led
dynamic event. I think Home Assist community, I think it's— they make
like, uh, maybe digital products for the house, um, or
maybe 300 people right there. Well, that's just— that was the photo that they
took. They were doing speaker presentations, product demos, vendor
participation, and they recorded a podcast of the Home Assistant.
The Home Assistant has a podcast was the point of this one, and
they hosted a meetup. So this is kind of the other
side of what can you do with your community. This podcast, this
business got people together to talk about what they do, what they build, with
the services they offer, the things that they love to do, and they
had their community come out and hang out and do a show,
do a greeting based around what they've been building
over the last couple years. And this is just a great way to bring your
community together. I think this is something that's
phenomenal. Uh, again, it's just proof that in your,
your podcast, you can have people come. Uh, people want to be a
part of your podcast. People want to connect
with you as a host. They— there you can benefit from
this parasocial relationship that's built upon on social
media, right? But you can do it with your podcast and you can create something
like you, you talked about this. They brought people who created
products and that off of their pro— their, their platform or their
system. This is phenomenal. I love it. And bringing community
again, people are looking for community and I think this is
the, uh, the basis of doing it. You can really create an amazing
community. I think one of the members that attended even made a cake
like in the Home Assistant logo, and they were all afraid to eat it. It
would look so nice, they didn't want to destroy the cake. Oh my God, that's
amazing. They eventually cut into it. So if anybody ever wants to make a Padute
cake, I don't know what that would look like, but you're welcome to bring it.
I think that's phenomenal. You like this one?
Wild trout. Interesting. Tell me about it. Let me tell you, the
Trout Bitten podcast is hosting a ticketed live event at a
brewery focused on wild trout conservation with
panel discussions, audience-submitted questions, ticket revenue, and
charitable donations. The event reinforces
mission-driven authority while creating layered content for
later distribution. Phil, these are $20 tickets, so I
mean, imagine going for a night out in 2026 and your
night out is only going to cost you $20. There's a happy
hour, there's a recording, there's an audience Q&A. So you get to participate in
the show. You're talking about conservation. How do we, you know, help save
our local trout? And then all this gets recorded
and distributed for a later release, really aligning
their mission with their community. This is another
great example of getting out there with your community sharing
a couple brewskis, talking about some stories.
It gives me the feels. If you concentrate on building a community,
you can transfer them into actual revenue by bringing them together
for hosting an event. You can even partner, partner with—
because I have no idea what the Trout Bitten podcast is about,
whether their event is talking about trout, uh, saving
trout, right, and conservation. So they're probably working with
some government agencies or some charities or something like that working together
there. One, bring out more awareness about it, but also it
helps your podcast because more people come out to know about your podcast and
you look like a great person because you're helping the trout
community or whatever your niche is. It's about building others,
right? And you'll see some great growth from it. This
is phenomenal. This is phenomenal. I love it. I want more. I want more.
Tell me more, Jeff. Give me more news, Jeff. I can't. I gave
you 6 stories. Another example, a
6-story example of people doing live podcasting and one award show. So we
did 5 live stories, and I really wanted to sneak in that award show. We're
not— I'm not doing all, uh, 6 live shows
anymore, but I have, I have a bank of like 60 stories that
we haven't even covered yet. But I'm trying to work in tips and tricks and
some other things happening in podcasting that are I'm going to teach some
people some things. Uh, first of
all, um, to grow your podcast, we're going to teach you how to grow your
podcast. One, uh, you, you want your SEO, and if you don't know what SEO
is, it's search engine optimization, because the podcast platforms
are early Google and early Yahoo. They're
early SEO because there's only a couple
million podcasts out there that aren't active. And even
though— sorry, most of them aren't active. So you have a small percentage that
are active. So they're— everybody's— the
keywords are out there for you. And SEO is just figuring out the keywords that
your audience is using to search for the stories that they want to listen to.
So what is the— what the SEO keywords
you want to look for, for your podcast, for your niche, for your
episodes, right? Those are very key. That's your foundation. Once you get that
done, you will have slow growth. People will find your podcast over time.
You also have to have good content. If your content sucks, you won't grow
because people won't listen to you. No matter how good your SEO is, if
your content's not good, people aren't listening. Make sure you have
3 call to 3 points where you have a single call to action in
your podcast at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. You want to
make sure that they're very simple. The first 2, simple as, hey, make sure you're
following the podcast. New listeners, make sure you're following the podcast. The last
one is the more detailed one where you go, hey listeners, make sure you're
you go, go ahead and hit that follow button, leave us a rating and a
review if you're possible. If you're listening on Spotify, make sure you leave those comments
because that helps grow the podcast. That allows— that triggers
the algorithm to show it to more people, which means we can build a community
and eventually have a live show. Give your audience something that
they can win at the end if they do this. Then once
you get those done, you want to focus on applying to every
single award Show that you can, be it paid or
not, because that can help you grow your podcast. And then look at paid
media. Paid media is very simple, just reaching out to other podcasts and say,
hey, can I pay you to put an ad of my podcast on your
podcast? And sometimes they have rates, sometimes they don't. They have a rate, they'll give
it to you. They don't, then you can
negotiate. Either you pay or you don't., but then you also have
platforms like Acast, Buzzsprout, and I believe Spotify
where you can, you can do self-serve advertising. I would
highly suggest you look into it. It could be a benefit for you because
you are, you are growing and talking to
the listeners at the level where they are at. They are listening to podcasts, so
why aren't you putting ads on podcasts? Anyways, that's just my tips, you
know, as a podcast mogul worker in the audience growth and
audience development. Place. Um, Jeff, how are you doing? Anything you want to talk
about? The podcast worker, the film mogul— wait, the film
mogul— wait, the Phil Better, the podcast mogul. There you
go. I have the same pitch I do all the time. You like podcasting and
you don't like risk? Well, check out the Padute Podcast Theater. We
will host the show for you. No contract, no minimum ticket
sales are required from you. We'll sell the tickets, build you a
landing page, record the event, produce the event, give you back
the recording. It's your content. We don't take any ownership over the content. And then
at the end of the night, we sit down, we go over the ticketing
dashboard, and I sell you 50% of the door so you could take 50% of
the credit. Every single podcast that has ever been here has walked out
the door with either no debt or money in their pocket.
There is no way to spend money here. This is a rising tide
lifts all ships business model. You produce a show, we help
promote it. The more tickets you sell, the more you make, the more you help
out the house, and we can continue to do this week after
week. Handshake deals. If you like it, you come back and do it again. If
you don't, hey, we go our own separate ways and we're glad we tried
it. Poduty.com, P-O-D-U-T-Y dot com. You
need to work on your pitch. You know, I get here, I'll work
for you here. I'll get your— Phil, tell me my pitch. Ladies and gentlemen, boys
and girls, children of all ages, podcasters, listen very closely. Have you ever
wanted to have an in-person podcast recording for
your audience? Are you in the Greater
Pittsburgh area? Then you need to head down to Poduty Theater.
This podcast theater is a one of a kind.
You don't need to worry about
money down. No, no money down. Do you have any practical ideas how to
do any promotion? No, you don't. Do you know how to make a landing page
for the event? No. This is what Poduty gives you. It gives you a venue
of about 50 seats that you can fill without having
to sign a contract because you get
to be hosted, produced. Then
you get your content given back
to you. So everything is free. And then at the end of
the night, because there's ticket sales— because obviously you want to have ticket
sales, right? You get 50% of the door right off the
bat. Why? Because the owner of the— of this
venue is so invested in podcasting that he wants to see you succeed. So he
will do all the big heavy lifting. All you have to do is bring
your audience to the live event. Make sure you check out
podutycom. For
more awesomeness. I think you should ask me what time it is. What time
is it, Jeff? It's time for Poduty and the News to
go home. What time
is it?
The news, the only live news
podcast about podcasting from
the state. The news, the only live news
podcast about podcasting
from
the stage.