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
– Why authentic host reads still perform
– AI-generated advertising and creator voice cloning
– Why RedCircle does not use synthetic host reads
– RedCircle Show IQ and better creator-brand matching
– Dynamic versus baked-in podcast advertising
– Spotify and YouTube gaining more monetization control
– Why creators need direct audience relationships
– RedCircle’s move into video
– Why YouTube was its first video priority
– HLS and podcast video advertising
– Audio versus video ad creative
– Separate audio and video podcast experiences
– Cross-platform measurement problems
– Alternate enclosures and adoption
– What defines a podcast now
– The need for meaningful industry standards
– The future of multi-channel podcast monetization
Chapter Timestamp Markers
00:00 Podcasting, trust and long-form media
01:00 Introducing Mike Kadin of RedCircle
02:00 Why trust matters in podcast advertising
03:20 AI-generated ads and audience trust
06:10 Why RedCircle avoids cloned host reads
09:00 Authentic creator endorsements
11:00 Why some host reads outperform others
12:20 RedCircle Show IQ
14:00 The future of host-read advertising
15:30 Dynamic versus baked-in ads
17:20 Spotify and ad skipping
21:00 YouTube and platform control
22:20 Creators need direct audience relationships
24:00 RedCircle moves further into video
26:30 HLS and podcast video advertising
31:00 Opportunities for video host-read advertising
33:00 Ads that work in audio and video
36:30 Separate audio and video feeds
40:00 The fragmented consumption experience
42:00 Podcast measurement gets more complicated
44:30 HLS and alternate enclosures
47:20 What is a podcast now?
52:00 Standards and the major platforms
54:00 Measuring advertising by performance
56:00 The multi-channel future of podcasting
58:00 Closing thoughts
Mike Kadin Guest Links
RedCircle: https://redcircle.com
Host and Show Links
New Media Show
https://newmediashow.com
New Media Show on YouTube
https://youtube.com/@TheNewMediaShow
Rob Greenlee
https://robgreenlee.com
Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robgreenlee
Podcast Hall of Fame
https://podcasthall.com
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.
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