WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome back to Pod News Weekly Review.

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I'm joined by a friend of the show. His name

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is Liam Hefner. He is the CEO and founder of

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the Mercury Network. Now, the Mercury Network

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is one years old. Congratulations. Liam, hello.

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How are you? Hello, Sam. Good to be back. Yeah,

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I'm good. Busy, tired. How are you? Busy, tired.

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Good. Yes. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship.

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With your one -year anniversary announcement,

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you've also made a couple of other announcements.

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But before we get into those announcements, for

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those who don't know, just take me back a step.

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Who or what is the Mercury Network? Well, we

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launched Mercury in February last year. We launched,

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I guess, as a typical network, but our plan was

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always to... do a bit more than that, be more

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than that and be more of an advocate for the

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whole indie podcasting space, which is hopefully

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what we're going to talk a bit more about. But

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in the last year, we started with a couple of

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really great indie shows. We've now got a roster

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of about 20 and we're kind of going onwards and

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upwards. I think we're one of the fastest growing

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independent podcast networks in the world. And

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last year has just been an absolute blur. It's

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been a lot of sleepless nights growing a network,

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but we're doing some great things. So yeah, next

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steps. Give me some examples from some of those

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network podcasts you've got. I'll give you a

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couple of examples. The first is our first original

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that we launched last year, which was Spooky

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Storytime, so a weekly horror anthology. It's

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one that we worked very closely on to bring to

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life, and we completely own that. That's gone

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from strength to strength. We've started growing

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a nice little audience there, and we really wanted

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to sort of tap into a sort of female -hosted,

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female -targeted horror podcast, which... we

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noticed didn't really exist and we thought let's

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do it. I think one of the things that Mercury

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can do really well is it can give a bit more

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creative autonomy to independent creators in

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ways that bigger networks maybe can't because

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they have certain commercial pressures to deliver

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straight away. We can create shows that have

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a slightly slower burn to them and that's what

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we're seeing with Spooky Storytime and because

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of that we've been able to deliver something

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that fits in a real niche and a gap in that space.

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And we're starting to see the results from that.

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Another example of a show that we've worked with

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is Passmaster. They're a phenomenal show with

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a couple of really, really talented guys, Ryan

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and Tan, who put a lot of blood, sweat and tears

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into their show. And they just need that help

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with the growth, with the brand building and

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some of those elements that they just don't have

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the capacity for. And, you know, again, it's

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one of those that just requires a hell of a lot

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of just... banging on doors and sending emails

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and it's in theory easy enough but it comes down

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to time it comes down to money it comes down

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to resource and all of these things are just

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stuff that independent creators don't have and

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that's where we're stepping in to help now let's

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start to talk about a couple of things you're

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announcing one is the hall of fame now why do

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we need another hall of fame well yeah you're

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right i mean there's a lot of hall of fames out

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there but One of the real things that we wanted

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to do at Mercury was not just to represent and

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support podcasters, but to celebrate those who

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have already contributed enormous value to the

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independent space specifically. So rather than

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being just a generic hall of fame that tries

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to make some nice kind of high profile friends

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across the industry, we are very targeted hall

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of fame. We call it a hall of heroes that celebrate

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those who have really championed independent

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podcasts. We think that by doing that, what we're

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able to do is really bring together that community

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of people who have changed the game in the independent

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world and shine a spotlight on them, really.

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Emma Turner, one of our first inductees this

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year, she's frustratingly modest considering

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everything that she does for our industry. So

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being able to actually hold her up and say, look,

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she's awesome and this is what she's doing for

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you, it's great to be able to do that. And have

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you added any others into the Hall of Heroes?

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Yes. So Arionis and Blatt is our other inductee.

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And we do have a third this year to round off

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our 2026 cohort. It is currently under wraps.

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It's a surprise. They don't know yet. Very few

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people know who this person is, but we're working

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out a way to surprise them at some point in the

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future. Oh, you're so kind. Just bring it around

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anytime you like. Anytime you like. Cool. Now,

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one of the other things you've done is created

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a product called Orbit. Tell me more. Yes. So

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I always find it hard to actually tell people

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what Orbit is because it's actually a very simple

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concept. It's taking the infrastructure that

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we've now built at Mercury and it's offering

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that to all podcasters. Now, the challenge with

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that as a typical network is that you can't just

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invite. everyone and anyone onto the network

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because you have to be able to deliver a certain

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amount of support with that. What we can do is

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say, look, we have this network. We have free

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hosting to offer you. We have the ad marketplace

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to plug you into. And we have, by building up

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that community, we have a lot of cross promotional

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power with that. We can also, you know, use some

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of our own sort of promotional expertise and

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network level resources. And for a small monthly

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fee, less than you're going to be paying currently

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for any hosting plan, you get to use that. So

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what we're doing is giving all podcasters this

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immediate day one cost saving with the potential

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to then also earn money from advertising in ways

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they just can't do on their own. And this is

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all part of what we wanted to do at Mercury,

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which was to find ways to actually empower all

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independent podcasters with the same resources

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and tools that currently and up to now have been.

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hidden behind a paywall first of all congratulations

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it'll be interesting to see the adoption will

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you cherry pick some of those from orbit and

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bring them onto the mercury network well there's

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definitely a long -term plan there our part i

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think at the moment doing that scouting and going

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out there trying to find shows that are really

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good fits for mercury is a heavy lift on on my

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part but there's also an awful lot of discretion

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and sort of qualitative judgment there there

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has to be always and that will never change but

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the more that we build orbit up and the more

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people we have there the more just insights we

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have we can see that data we can see what shows

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are doing well what shows aren't doing well we

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get that first hand data set that we can use

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to do the sort of trend analysis and really understand

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what is happening in our industry, the shows

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that are showing the most potential and where

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we can step in and offer the support. So, you

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know, it's going to make our decision -making

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a lot smarter so that we know that the shows

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that we then promote up to Mercury are shows

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that we genuinely know we can help to succeed.

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Right. And if I wanted to sign up to Orbit, where

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would I go today? You can go to mercurypodcast

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.com forward slash Orbit. And all the information

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is there. I will caveat that I built this website

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without any knowledge of actually how to build

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a website or something like this. So I'm open

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to feedback. Please be as harsh as you need to

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be. No, no, no. Be gentle. He's working hard.

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He's working hard. Liam Hefnan, thank you so

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much. It's always good to see you. Will we see

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you at the London Podcast show this year? Of

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course you will. Yeah, I'll be around. So if

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anyone else is there listening to this, do drop

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me a message and let's catch up. lovely then

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take care mate see you soon yes sir