Founder’s Note

Hey yo, I am back from vacation and it’s the first time in three and a half years that I have really (nearly) taken a full week off to relax and go on vacation since we started Hypecast. It was also the first time that my wife had a week off from the kids since the birth of our son in 2021. And it was the first time in three four years that I had the chance to visit my sister in Djerba, Tunisia. She moved there nearly a decade ago and now has a family of her own. AND, I took my parents along for the ride, too.

For some people it might sound like stress, but I got to say that it was much more relaxing than you think and I even had the chance to catch up on some of my favorite podcast shows and do some reading.

One of my favorite reads was the article by Bryan Barletta about Spotity’s video feature and the aftermath it created. We all know that video podcasts are the big topic that’s on everyone’s mind working in podcasting right now and even Harry Morton from Lower Street, a leading corporate podcast production agency, just has announced that they will offer a new video production service for their customers. We have discussed this topic a few times in Hypecast’s LinkedIn newsletter (discontinued in favor of The Mic Drop), e.g. Audio vs. Video in Internal Comms.

Of course, we have to talk about it again, because (and you might have already guessed it) reality is a bit more nuanced than we’d hoped for.

The Big Topic

Video podcasts – they’re the shiny new toy everyone in audio seems to be chasing right now. Spotify is pushing hard, YouTube is counting billions of monthly podcast views, and pundits are fighting over whether adding a camera is the next logical step or just a time‑sink. Bryan Barletta fired the latest shot with his article “The Impact Spotify’s Video Has on Publishers,” warning creators to pump the brakes on Spotify’s video rollout. And after testing video ourselves, I’m inclined to agree that the hype comes with some hefty caveats.