iHeart's Shady Podcast Deal with Ted Cruz

It’s an election year, and there’s no doubt podcasting will play a role. Here’s an interesting one.Ted Cruz is hosting a podcast, 3 days a week, distributed by Premiere Networks, part of iHeartMedia. Now Senator Cruz, who’s up for reelection this year, isn’t being paid directly for his time, but get this. His Political Action Committee, or PAC, is producing the show. And a share of the ad revenue – over $630,000 so far – is going to a SUPER PAC – no his, but one that supports him. What does this mean for podcasts and politics?

More: https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/9/24125736/ted-cruz-podcast-verdict-iheart-fec-neon-hum-roost-sony

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/03/20/super-pac-backing-ted-cruz-received-215000-from-iheartmedia-fueling-ethics-concerns-after-podcast-deal/?sh=502dbd2b60ac

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/ted-cruz-podcast-iheartmedia-19373225.php

Now we’ve all been warned about campaign shenanigans created by AI, and podcasting is certainly grappling with this emerging technology. It’s the wild wild west out there. And just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. A podcast company just settled with George Carlin's estate after they created a 60-minute episode of content with with him. The show has since been taken down..

More: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240404-podcast-sued-for-ai-george-carlin-settles-with-comic-s-estate

Speaking of AI – OpenAI, and Chat GPT say they ingested and transcribed over a million hours of YouTube content, including podcasts, in order to train its latest version, Chat GPT-4. Now, this has lots of legal ramifications that are too complicated for me to get into here – but if you’re going to train a large language model – I guess it makes sense to turn to the largest source for content in the world. Chat GPT can be a great tool. I often use it to draft show notes based on podcast transcripts, which I then tweak. My theory on AI is that it’s always improving, but you need a human gatekeeper to check the work.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/6/24122915/openai-youtube-transcripts-gpt-4-training-data-google

As always if you have questions about podcasting, or are interested in starting a show – find me online at JAG in Detroit dot com. Lata!

Find jag on social media @JAGPodcastProductions or online at JAGPodcastProductions.com

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