The Death of CBS News Radio, Colbert's Farewell & Spotify's AI Overhaul

Hi, this is Tom Bergeron. You are listening to

Altered Geek. You didn't think I knew that. Hello

and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm your host, Steve

Megatron, and joining me on this adventure into

geekdom is TFG1 Mike. remember folks always pay

for your home projects so you too don't go to

divorce court i should have known better um no

no that's coming from my own that's coming from

my own experience damage shut up so yeah um if

you're gonna do projects at home make sure you

have the right tools for the right job and you

do lots of research because uh i didn't do a

lot of research when it came to like framing

out a shed and my wife did and then we had to

undo everything i did but in the process we also

learned of something that neither of us considered

so it didn't matter anyway so in other words

folks he was tim the tool man she was al borland

pretty much yeah i love how i turned this around

immediately i was like more power uh i was just

like yeah uh so that being said it's a little

bit of housekeeping we're still working on the

top 100 animated series 15th anniversary edition

i because of this whole shed debacle that's why

we're a week later than expected so it'll probably

be another week later uh for the edited uh version

of it uh however we just dropped 50 to 20 through

26 which go ahead and say what you've been saying

about the whole top 100 so far it's a slobber

knocker i knew you were gonna say it uh granted

i am prompt um it's been nuts. Like literally

like some of the shows that have dropped. So

I'm not going to spoil it. You guys got to go

listen to it. Um, but yeah, it's been crazy.

Uh, the stuff that's kind of shown up. I'm a

little scared. The final. I'm curious as hell

on the top 25. Now that 50 to 26 have been revealed.

Cause I like not even your powers of prediction

can. figure out what the hell the top 25 is going

to be. Oh, I guarantee you I know what number

one is. As long as it ain't the damn Simpsons,

I'm good. I'm thinking it's going to be the bat.

I'm thinking it's going to be the bat. Considering

we went beyond at number 27, I could see that.

Batman the Animated Series is well regarded in

the industry. No, I... As like the pinnacle.

Yeah. So... I don't already know that. So I've

been crossing off shows on the list as they happen.

Like I have my kids list pulled up and then I

have my own personal list pulled up. And then

I've been counting down from the 110 through

26 and putting the original top 100 number on

it. So I've been looking at them side by side

and as a show comes off my list. uh i i put a

uh like a hyphen through it uh just because i

i want to know that you know okay that one's

made it like it's it's time to i put the strike

through on it yeah um so the shows that i think

are that i think that half of what's remaining

of my list will not show up in the top 100 And

then half of what is remaining will be in the

top 25. You know what the craziest thought I

just had is, is that imagine a top 100 from us

where only Prime and Beast Machines are on the

list. That would be a terrible list. Recount!

those two and beast wars are like to me the pinnacle

of the best writing b1 will always have a place

because it yeah on the entire franchise yeah

you cannot discount that even if it has some

major issues but again like i'm just thinking

like everything that's fallen so far from 100

to 26 so far in The stuff we've revealed to this

point, only Transformers Prime and Beast Machines

have made the list. And I'm like, we're down

to the nitty gritty. We're down to the top 25.

Like, holy crap. What if no other Transformers

series makes it? What if I'm not saying I hope

that isn't the thing. I really hope it isn't.

I hope Beast Wars makes it. I hope G1 makes it.

Absolutely. But what if it doesn't? Like, holy

crap. What if I will? I will riot if Beast Wars

doesn't make it. If it makes it at 25, I'll be

happy. Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, but I'm just.

This list is so different. Oh, 100 % different.

So different compared to the list that we had

15 years ago. And the shows that Kevin even stated,

he's like, we're in territory where the points

didn't even hit. The points are way past that.

I have the original breakdown of how many points

each episode had in the original top 100. And

just for just for funsies, Batman, the animated

series had 1761 points, which was beating the

Simpsons by a hundred and 152 points. And that

I think we've already surpassed that number.

Yeah. In this top 100. Because we also have 44

people that have submitted compared to the 20

that we had the last time. Yeah, that's what

I was going to say. We doubled our profit margin

when it came to entrance of people who submitted

lists. Now, it's funny because some of the shows

like Beast Wars was 23 last time. Yeah. But I

mean, we've had a few that were above, you know,

under the... the 25 that have already fallen,

which to me is like, wow. Um, I'm, I'm predicting

based on the last top 100 and based on what I

have, I'm thinking there's going to be a lot

of similarities in this department in the top

10. Uh, I think Batman, the animated series soup,

uh, Simpsons, uh, Looney Tunes, DuckTales, TMNT,

the original. Animaniac, South Park, and the

Flintstones will definitely appear in the top

15. I'm just guessing at that. I think Transformers,

if it shows up, will be between 15 and 25. I

think Beast Wars, if it shows up, will be between

15 and 25. I'm hoping Dragon Ball Z shows up

or Dragon Ball Super. I'm unsure if it's going

to. I have like Sonic the Hedgehog. I have, you

know, Swat Cats, The Mask, the different Justice

League shows, Gargoyles, Pinky and the Brain.

I have some other like I have What If and Lower

Decks and so and X -Men. So like I have some

of these shows. I don't think all of them are

going to make it, sadly. Yeah, I don't think,

unfortunately, as much as I like it, even though

I have not gotten around to watching season three

yet, I don't think What If is going to make the

top 25. As much as I love What If, I've seen

the first two seasons, absolutely love the first

two seasons. It ended strong because it tied

it all together. Okay, absolutely. Like I said,

I haven't seen the third season yet. I just don't,

I don't think it's going to, I think if it was

going to be on the list, it would have been somewhere

between 55 and 45. And it was not there. But

I don't know. We're just going to have to wait

and see for when we record the top 25. Oh boy.

Oh boy. I'm excited either way to see what happens.

I've been pretty pleased with the list overall.

Very few shows I've thought of in this countdown

that I would have omitted. There's definitely

a handful I would have omitted or at least moved

them around, but I can't really complain about

what showed up overall. I'm a little surprised

on some of their placements, but yeah. Yeah,

I think there's only two shows I would have moved

higher. There's three total shows that I would

have liked to have seen higher. I would have

liked to have seen Batman Beyond in the same

place it was 15 years ago, which was 16. It was

at 27 this time around. I would have loved to

have seen Phineas and Ferb higher than 38. I

would have loved to have seen Kim Possible higher

than wherever it actually is. I forget off the

top of my head where it is, but I think that

deserves to be a higher show. Well, they both

did gain. Well, Kim Possible wasn't in the first

round. Yes, it was. Well, it missed it. It was

110. Oh, yeah, okay. So it broke into the list

this time. Yeah, it broke in this time. Which

did happen for a lot of shows. True. Some of

them gained major numbers, too, like Speed Racer.

That I would have still omitted. Speed Racer.

Yeah. I was like, oh, come on, man. I'd rather

have Speed Buggy than Speed Racer. Well, we had

Powerpuff Girls there last time. True. And that

rose, too. Yeah, this list has been... Oh, Powerpuff

Girls, Tom Kane, damn it! Yeah. Yeah. That's

one story I didn't pull up for this episode.

We lost voice actor, actor Tom Kane recently.

Yeah, he played Yoda in the Clone Wars. Yoda

in the Clone Wars, yeah, but I forgot he was

also the voice of Professor Utonium. Yeah, in

Powerpuff Girls. Damn it. Yeah, sad. But yeah,

so like we mentioned, it's been nuts. If you

haven't listened to any of the episodes yet,

listen to the nominees and the reasons why. Listen

to the top 100 episodes. Some other piece of

housekeeping that I'm going to bring up before

we get into the topics and discussions. Sure.

I and Mike and I have just gone over looking

at some of the new stuff for the website. And

I will say that there'll be some changes coming

this year and. It will be almost like a new geek

cast radio. you might say old is new again yes

old is new again old is new again yeah so i'm

going back to an older theme because again the

the theme that we use now it's been clunky like

i don't know if you've noticed you go to the

website sometimes it doesn't um it doesn't load

properly it doesn't load properly and so like

you'll end up with like a thousand page thing

to scroll through and it's just a mess and or

you'll end up with one giant like Right now,

I haven't refreshed it, but right now it's loaded

properly. But normally, if I refresh the website,

like I'm going to do right now at this moment,

luckily it's not doing it. But if I open Chrome

or if I open Brave or whatever, it doesn't matter

what service you... Oh, well, here, it's doing

it on the bottom part here. If I scroll down

below the... the main slider here. My good old

buddy, Peter Falk and the Columbo files. It shows

up the giant artwork where it's not supposed

to show up the giant artwork. It's supposed to

show up the regular size artwork. It's not, it's

not doing so well, the old website. So we are

upgrading. Steve is doing a lot of awesome work

in the new website. And I did find out because

this site's been ported over from, media temple

to site five or site what was it site five site

five and yeah back to media temple then we went

to one -on -one and then we were posting her

now it's been ported over so many times and it's

been damaged so many times and it's had so many

different plugins over the years yeah that the

website i literally when i was uh trying to import

stuff there was so much broken stuff um it actually

i i actually had to revert the new site to the

nightly backup the day before because it was

so bad trying to pull stuff in and I had to develop

my own like plugin to migrate content over and

strip it of the old remnants of these old plugins

and themes yeah but you're doing a really good

job with it so yeah and I will say that the new

site is Probably like 50 times faster than the

current one. Yeah, it is. It's not clunky at

all. Plus, all of the episodes are there. And

I'm working on some stuff for the YouTube support

portion to to also strip out the shorts. So like

when my brother posts stuff, for instance, it

posts everything. yep and i cannot filter it

with the plugin i have right uh the new plugin

i can cool uh plus there's a lot of like new

features and kind of cool stuff to kind of break

stuff down so it's it's gonna be awesome when

it comes out i just a lot of like work very awesome

very awesome so getting into the first topic

we have the disney pulls hulu even tighter into

disney plus but uh They don't plan on getting

rid of it. No, they're not going to get rid of

it. So basically this is Disney is. It's doesn't

have any current plan to phase out the Hulu app.

So they're allowing integration with the Disney

plus and Hulu bundle. So if you're still using

the Hulu app, which I am not. I don't even have

it on my phone anymore. I got rid of it because

I have the Disney plus annual plan or whatever

it is. And ever since they ordered over the Hulu

stuff and whatever, and I honestly, as I've mentioned

on here multiple times before in the last, I

don't know, year and a half, two years. Only

thing I really watch on Hulu is High Potential

from ABC. So, I mean, I'll watch other stuff

on Hulu as well when there's stuff on there I

want to watch. But, I mean, yeah, ever since

Disney bought Hulu and ABC, whatever, ABC, Disney,

it's all the same damn thing. Yeah, like when

they finally folded it into the Disney Plus app,

I'm like, well, why do I need the Hulu app anymore

if it's all there? So I just got rid of it. But

for those of you who still have the Hulu app,

it's nice to know that they're still keeping

it around. They've outlined plans to deliver

a unified app experience for bundle subscribers

of Disney Plus and Hulu in 2026. The company

is moving forward for a future. where both will

be merged onto the same back -end tech platform.

However, for now, the Hulu standalone subscription

in the U .S. will remain available, and there

are no current plans to sunset the Hulu app,

Disney reps said. Starting this past couple Tuesdays

ago, or whatever Tuesday, May 19th, customers

with the Disney Plus and Hulu bundle. will be

able to sync their profiles, including watch

history, watch list, and recommendations from

Hulu with the Disney Plus app. Once Hulu profiles

are linked to Disney Plus, viewers will be able

to pick up where they left off and stream content

from both services from the Disney Plus app.

So then why would you want to keep the Hulu app

if your profile is synced into Disney +, since

Hulu is now a part of Disney+. So this goes on

to say, currently subscribers with a Hulu Plus

live TV plan. A Disney Plus Hulu Max bundle or

Hulu add -ons are not able to link profiles with

Disney Plus. In addition, kids' profiles on Hulu

and profiles under 18 years of age will not link

to Disney Plus either. So that's why, essentially.

So if you're still using Hulu with live TV or

if you... Yeah, so, okay, sure. Luckily, I'm

not one of those people. I've never I never did

do the Hulu with life. Any app, honestly, with

a live TV plan kind of thing. I've never done

that because I've switched solely to streaming,

because if I'm paying for the use of your app.

If I'm paying specifically if I because it's

me. And people, if you're hearing the sound of

my voice, you've known my spiel on streaming.

I pay for ad -free streaming. Why would I want

to pay for live TV when I know there are going

to be ads in live TV? So for streaming, it's

like, yeah, so I don't have to worry about live

TV. So I've never done that. I just don't want

to do that. So, yeah. for those out there that

still want the Hulu app. And if you use live

TV with Hulu, you can still have it. I mean,

I guess it's kind of nice that it's not just

going away. So sure. Why not? I think the main

reason they're not getting rid of it, it's because

it's greed. It's the. It's easier to get people

to sign up for one or the other, and if they

merge it, they'll just have to raise the price.

That's true. So I think that's part of what's

going down. Probably, yeah. With no power comes

no responsibility. That show's awesome, by the

way. I've only seen the first episode, and I'm

already like... I ran out of time more so. I

was watching it last night while I was fixing

my printer. My 3D printer took a crap on me last

week. Oh no, it's not supposed to happen. I've

gotten... What is it that it says? Now I've got

to pull up my app because it's currently printing

right now. Oh no. like i said i had to fix it

what was happening it was getting gummed up um

and it it was something was jammed somewhere

and i don't know where i it kept getting the

tubes of the filament from the multi -printer

multi -color printer part uh where it has the

rolls and it it was sending the stuff to the

printer And then it was backing up in there and

then it was blowing out the tube. Oh, no. And

then I was ending up with like spools of filament

behind the printer. Like just coiled like a slinky

behind it. And I was like, oh. So I come to find

out, I think the print head finally went bad.

on it because i had a spare i bought before all

the tariff crap happened because i was like oh

crap what if the tariffs happen and i can't get

a new printhead right so i bought it before the

print you know all of that uh i gotta buy another

one so i have another backup but uh i hot swapped

that out it was pretty quick to do too like i

didn't need any special tools i literally just

was able to move a couple of switches and then

things popped off and i was able to reattach

and then i think one of the tubes went bad uh

themselves that fed it to the print head and

i replaced that too and then uh i started the

printer earlier today and it's printing what

i was wanting and yeah it was it was a mess though

uh to try and figure out but once i got it figured

out it's it's been working but i think i've got

over 530 hours on this thing oh wow which is

immensely more than my previous printer yeah

where I think I spent 530 hours fixing it. That's

an exaggeration, but that's an exaggeration.

Obviously, yeah. But yeah, it was not fun, to

say the least. But yeah, I've been working on

that in my spare time. but uh back to spider

-man noir spider noir i was watching that while

i was working on it and i i was kind of excited

for it and i was also happy for nick cage because

uh he got to play another superhero besides uh

the well besides ghost rider and besides uh the

superman that never actually made the you know

true time of day yeah um so yeah so there's that

and um i don't know i i think that this i think

this has some legs and i i know that it i'm pretty

sure it got renewed for a second season i haven't

finished watching the season yet uh but i'm super

excited for it yeah i watched the final trailer

we have linked here in the show notes and i was

like this is interesting. And then that sent

me down this whole rabbit hole of Nick cage interviews

and videos and things like that on YouTube. And

I was like, okay, I'll have to give this a shot

when I can find time to do it. Cause I've got

so much other stuff I need to do before I can

even think about sitting down and watching it

at the time. But, uh, but yeah, no, it looks

really, really awesome. So going to have to watch

that one of these. Up next, well, this is going

to start the two news stories where CBS is dead

to us. One of them is kind of really sad. The

other one is just infuriating, but it is whatever.

CBS News Radio shuddered on Friday after nearly

a century of broadcasting with its final newscast

coming to a close with the voice of Edward R.

Morrow and his famous sign -off, good night and

good luck. Then came the final words around 11

.30 p .m. Eastern Time, CBS Special Reports,

I'm Christopher Cruz. The network announced in

March that CBS News Radio would be shutting the

doors to budget cuts under new owners Paramount

Skydance. How do you shutter a news radio station

that has been in operation for almost a GD century?

Are you serious? F***ing Paramount. what's wrong

with you to be to be fair if it's been losing

money i can kind of get it okay i understand

that but also like there's also such a thing

as going on too long and yeah so i mean if it

If if it had lost, if if it should have been

shuttered a long time ago and it's just taken

this long because of nostalgia reasons of like,

well, it's always been here, which any time a

brand doesn't evolve in any case, like even even

though it sucks. Anytime a brand refuses to innovate

or do something new and get rid of something

old in favor of something new. it fails like

because it doesn't always like you shouldn't

always keep something going just for the sake

of keeping it going true um good yeah but i was

gonna say like i there there's been so many shufflings

around radio like broadcast radio over the years

i mean i hurt buying up you know sirius xm or

you know buying up and buying up you know and

then you get like town square buying stuff and

you get cumulus and you get odyssey and then

you get all these other you know all these different

organizations and and then of course like you

get all the the unions criticizing everything

that oh it's reckless oh it's blah blah blah

it's like well okay are you poning up the money

or are you just saying it because you're losing

a source to charge people for union dues too

like i'm not i'm not a fan of ellison so don't

get me wrong like i'm not yeah i i think he's

a i think he's a total tool i think his his uh

his daddy is paying for everything and so like

he gets what he wants and he throws a tantrum

and kind of like how they fought from warner

brothers you know from netflix which i would

have been more in favor of having netflix buy

it because sky dance came in and bought paramount

which and yeah which had just merged again with

cbs so like i don't know like i it's a whole

everything gets a whole another debacle and but

it was like the the psycho ex -girlfriend that

wouldn't go away until she finally like bludgeoned

him was into submission and he was like okay

i think i'll hang out and we'll we'll become

married you know and and i feel like that's the

situation with paramount warner brothers uh it

it wouldn't leave the situation alone and then

netflix made off like a bandit anyway so um so

yeah like i i'm not a fan of them whatsoever

but from a strictly business position like i

think the all these guilds i think they're i

like i never see myself working for any of them

because one they charge stupid amount to be a

part of them and two i feel like the whole market's

moving away from those And it's been moving away

because the more that these these guilds get

butthurt over stuff happening and unions, the

more they find a loophole to stay away from them

and then use less and less of them. Yeah, I'm

not saying that people shouldn't be fairly compensated.

Like I as a fellow creative person, like I, I

do believe in that. But but at the same time,

like. They're making a business decision. And

if they decided, you know, it's been 100 years,

it's it's time for it to close down. I mean,

I feel like it's a solid number to quit on. Yeah,

but in announcing the closure in March, Weiss

and Tom. The president of CBS News wrote that

the shift in radio station programming strategies,

coupled with challenging economic realities,

has made it impossible to continue the service.

I don't know. I don't know. We also live in the

TikTok generation. That's true. We live in the

generation, too, where... uh like look at us

for instance when we started podcasting our downloads

were immensely higher than they are now yeah

and i say that as you know someone who's been

doing this for 20 years but i also say it is

the fact that when we started having more visual

media on youtube when we started having more

talk shows on youtube when we started having

more of these like quick hits like it essentially

took the meme culture and shortened everyone's

attention spans to the point that if it's not

in a two minute clip it's too long it didn't

get the time of day like it didn't get the interest

and so that's the case even with podcasting is

like I feel like if there's not a video component

and there's not a short, it's not going to get

the time of day that it used to get because since

that era of like 2016 and especially during COVID

where everyone and their brothers started a podcast,

especially famous people that had corporate backing

because again, they had nothing better to do.

Everybody was on lockdown, stuck in their house.

And so that's why microphones and all the gears

shot through the roof. And so it was, I feel

like during that is where we had the biggest

transition and everything dropped because you

had corporate backed podcasts. You had video

shows, which were trying to shirk the unions,

which is why the unions got more strict on it,

on what qualifies. it's just I don't know like

the whole entertainment industry has gone through

this weird roller coaster the last 10 years and

it's like yeah all of the change sucks and it

leaves us kind of uncertain of where it's going

but I mean they're even replacing podcasters

and they're replacing like Spotify or I think

it's Spotify has something now where they're

gonna have uh ai podcasts that are generated

based on uh other material that's being scraped

from somewhere and publish all of these on there

and there's all kinds of content farms doing

this crap too which is why i'm such a stickler

on keeping everything is like yeah i'm automating

the website So I can put more effort into the

podcast itself. Yeah, exactly. Because if I can

automate more of that stuff using the AI, you

know, using it as a tool, I'm not replacing the

creative part, the part I enjoy. Yeah, exactly.

Because I feel like the more stuff changes, the

more like and I feel like that's what's happening

with radio, too. I feel like that's what's causing

all of these shifts is the fact that it's getting

so easy for people to create content. Like I

went to a. chamber of commerce thing for public

media today and they were telling people how

to do you know video content right from your

phone that's that uses ai to edit it for you

like you produce the content the ai puts the

the subtitles and they were talking about platforms

that are better than the one i used for the top

100 uh that are more accurate and they're like

yeah you just export it and Like they throw their

title card at the end, which I'm like, what do

you do? Like, I don't care. Yeah, I'll do it

as long as I can do it for free. But then it'll

add music that's copyright protected so that

are not copyright protected, copyright free.

So like you're not in trouble for that. It'll

add, you know, all these little, you know, B

-roll clips to enhance it or, you know, camera

tricks. But it takes your actual footage and

your voice and keeps that exactly the same. and

it enhances it and so like i was kind of amazed

what you can do with it you know to make it faster

and i'll probably play around with it but it's

it's again it's allowing us to create the content

and not you know so i i don't know i'm i'm an

old fogey too when it comes to you know old media

and nostalgia and old shows and like i'd much

prefer to just stuck around as it was But I also

get things change. Yup. Exactly. That is what

it is. Speaking of change after 33 years, the

late show is no more. And Stephen Colbert had

11 years out of that time with the late show.

that was such a long run oh yeah i mean he had

a good he had a good run yeah he had a good run

yeah 33 years it was 1993 when david letterman

uh started uh got his start on the late show

back in 1993 or so i think it was Yeah, because

30 years ago was 96. Yeah, I'm right with that

math. It's midnight, folks, but I can still do

33 -year -old math. But yeah, it was 93 when

The Late Show with David Letterman at the time

premiered on CBS, and Dave had a good run, loved

his top tens. There's actually a... Top 10 with

Peter Cullen as Optimus, live action Optimus

Prime. I don't know if it was for 2007 or if

it was for Revenge of the Fallen. I forget. It

was either 2007 or 2009. But they did do a Optimus

Prime top 10. One of those years. But yeah, 33

years of The Late Show and Stephen Colbert had

11 years of The Late Show. of that time and they

as much as i know he didn't want to go out he

didn't want to leave the show and whatever else

didn't want like i'm kind of glad that they're

just closed like they just let the show stop

like they weren't gonna find the next like they

weren't here's the next great hunt for the late

show's new host or whatever next you know whatever

they just let the show stop and they're bringing

in comics unleashed with byron allen or whatever

his name is i know what his name is but um i

i just love that they're doing that i i just

think it's great that they're letting the legacy

of the late show end with steven colbert i agree

it's it's tasteful like way of doing it i mean

it it does suck for cbs doing this especially

considering what they replaced him with like

this show it like CBS's ratings were super high

with Colbert and then they did that and then

the show that followed it the ratings tanked

so it's like I mean I may not have always agreed

with these guys like out of all of the late night

hosts I find Kimmel to be the most annoying like

I just don't like Kimmel like I feel like he's

the most abrasive out of the group like colbert

i genuinely liked i you know i liked uh jimmy

fallon because fallon just likes to have fun

with everybody and then also like i watched him

on snl for years and i watched colbert on you

know on uh colbert report well i watched him

on that but i also watched him with um why does

my brain never work when i'm trying to do this

uh on comedy central with uh john stewart oh

uh what is the name of that damn thing i know

daily show yeah daily show so i used to watch

him on there too you know so uh yeah i mean i

think it's cool that they're donating the set

to the museum of broadcast communications and

call in uh chicago in chicago yeah that is awesome

i think that's pretty cool uh because like there's

a children's museum and uh like flint michigan

that has like an old tv station news desk and

green screen and so you can kind of like play

news you know in the the children's museum and

like my kids got to sit at the desk that i grew

up watching the you know the anchors sit at so

it was kind of cool um so i mean like anytime

i've seen that kind of stuff happen it's cool

uh but then it's funny because Colbert had the

number one late night program for nine consecutive

seasons. And it won the Emmy for outstanding

talk series and received a standing ovation from

the Emmy crowd last year. And I'm like, are you

kidding me? So they, they, they, uh, you know,

Byron Allen's comics unleashed replaced Colbert

show. Yeah. Like I'm like, I kind of questioned

the stupidity. Like if you wanted to launch a

new late show or, you know, launch some kind

of other show, like, great but i don't know man

i just don't know yeah i don't know either i

i loved colbert's return for a one night only

yeah that was humorous yeah that was funny because

he came back on a michigan community television

show yeah um yeah that was good i i think it

would be cool if he did that like just kind of

showed up at random community media companies

oh absolutely that would be hilarious and then

you know get to host a bunch of different ones

have celebrity guests and you know do it for

the funds um i don't know if Whichever, I forget

who owns Comedy Central off the top of my head.

I think it's Paramount. Oh, well. Whoever owns

the rights to Colbert Report, if he could get

it back, just go on his own damn YouTube channel

and just do the Colbert Report again. He could

just do his own show. Like, I mean, everybody

on the internet does their own show now. i don't

know like but again i've read that he's gonna

go on uh uh do his stuff through youtube though

yeah he's he just started up his own youtube

channel so which uh i think that's great i think

he'll get better absolutely yeah he'll get better

exposure doing that then oh yeah then restarting

his career that way than doing what he was doing

oh absolutely And honestly, as much as I hate

to see the late show be retired, like you said,

everything kind of has its time, whatever else.

But honestly, unless it's clips, like you were

saying earlier about how this generation is clips

this or shorts that or whatever. Well, their

attention span is terrible. Like my kids, they

don't even watch a full movie or TV show. They

skim through it. because it's too long and i'm

like dude you're missing everything and then

they said oh i don't understand this and i'm

like well yeah watch it no right but i'm saying

like for like for me specifically like late night

tv like i will catch like it used to be a thing

where oh you get to stay up late and see Joan

Rivers on Johnny Carson or, or Peter Falk, who

was Columbo on Johnny Carson. Awesome. Yay. Great.

Or you get to see John Terrell or Tom Cruise

or whoever. And like nowadays at my age now and

whoever the like Jimmy Fallon's are, and I'll

watch Jimmy. Uh, I think my favorite, my favorite

episode Jimmy's done in the last few years is

when he had Charlie Puth on and Charlie Puth

was basically taking him to music school and

they created this whole thing when Charlie got

his newest album released late. Um, in the last,

uh, was it this year, last year, whenever it

was, uh, That was the coolest thing I had seen

in late night in a long time, just because it

was Charlie Puth and it was music and it was

whatever. But I haven't stayed up or whatever

to watch a late night TV show like The Tonight

Show or even Kimmel. Even though Kimmel, like

you said, is the least of the favorites out of

all of them. And I haven't liked Kimmel since

he was on Win Ben Stein's Money. I'll take Ben

Stein over Jimmy Kimmel any day. Oh, 100%. But

I don't know. I think we're just in the current

time zone or current timeline of maybe it's just

me. Maybe I'm just too old and curmudgeonly like

late night TV doesn't matter to me as much as

it used to. No. i'd rather be asleep that's that's

why we're ending up with all of these like kind

of just going away yep yep pretty much and i

think the reason why it doesn't matter to me

as much as it used to is because simply as i

just said i can go on the tonight show youtube

channel i can look up charlie pooth or tom cruise

or whoever and like Oh, Tom Cruise did the lip

sync thing. He did the weekend song. I can't

feel my face. That was huge last year. I saw

that the next day. I was like, when did this

happen? Last night? Oh, I was asleep. I saw it

the next morning on the Tonight Show YouTube

channel. I was like, oh, my God. That was hilarious.

Yeah. I don't know. But, I mean, it is still

a little sad that Colbert is no longer on the

air anymore. But, you know, like we already said,

maybe with him starting his YouTube channel,

he'll find a whole new audience and still do

the same stuff he was already doing. Yep, yep,

yep. So, moving on. Yeah, we've got the Spotify

podcaster stuff. Yeah, Spotify. What are you

doing to us now? Torture devices. All these new

podcaster features of where you can ask questions

and the podcast or listening to or watching it

answers in real time. They can. They have some

new dynamic creator sponsorships available for

their partner program. Some stuff to do with

that. They've got some new membership stuff.

Kind of like a Patreon of sorts. Personal podcasts

are coming. This is the thing I was talking about.

It's coming to premium users in the US. It's

a tool that. Let's listeners generate and schedule

short private audio episodes tailored to their

interests and their listening habits. Examples

given are help me understand economics in five

minutes or share my daily city updates after

a free set of credits per month. Listeners will

have the option to purchase more. In other words,

it's going to be like using Google or chat GPT,

but audio. Although you can have those conversations

with Google Gemini now. And you've been able

to do that with Microsoft Copilot since they

created it. I can talk through the app to Copilot

and have a conversation with the AI there. NVIDIA

has had that same technology where you can talk

to it. I don't think it's anything groundbreaking,

but at the same time, I don't really care about

a personal podcast. If I'm looking up information,

I don't necessarily want a five -minute audio

clip. I'll look up... a video on youtube if i'm

trying to learn something or if i need you know

the information i generally am okay listening

to a podcast about it so like i think it's going

to remain to be seen how people take these ai

podcasts so here's my thing about this whole

thing and i really wish they would get a policy

on this the company still has no policy on entirely

ai generated shows get a no tolerance policy

on that no tolerance on a fully generated ai

shows that should be no don't and stop hey well

did you see what youtube's doing about it right

no i didn't see they're gonna automatically flag

uh episodes that appear to be ai as ai oh with

this custom label but the thing is is youtube's

also been notorious for false negatives that's

true too so trust me folks steve and i are not

we have actual intelligence not artificial intelligence

thank you yeah i mean we i've i use it for a

tool i i don't replace me like i don't i know

I mean, obviously you can tell that I'm not using

a bot because like I have all my own verbal crutches

and ums and ahs and I don't even edit those out

because honestly, it adds to the authenticity.

I used to care about editing a lot of those and

I'll cut them out if I've got a big enough gap

between them. But if I don't and I kind of roll

under the next couple of words pretty easily,

I will actually just leave them in because it's

just not. worth me dealing with i still care

about editing those out because i care about

the language of how i'm speaking but i do too

but it's about learning how to talk better because

if if eventually i learn enough to process what

i'm trying to say and think about it beforehand,

I'll be less likely to use the ums and ahs as

I have a verbal stutter. Hmm. Which is typically

why I end up doing that is because I get lost

in my thought and my mouth is moving faster than

my brain or the other way around. Aha. But yeah,

Spotify, please get a no tolerance policy on

fully. AI generated podcast. That's ridiculous.

We should not have to have a notice at the beginning

of every podcast where that it says the geek

cast radio network guaranteed human. Oh, I love

that. Oh, I feel like I need to do that now.

That would be hilarious, actually. You know where

I got that, don't you? No. Really? No. Once you

tell me, I'm sure I'll know. You don't listen

to a certain podcast I listen to then. So, all

right, well, these out of the bag. I think they

started in 2019, 20. I forget when pod meets

world from I heart media. I don't know when they

started this, but I heart media now has a thing

at the beginning of every episode of pod meets

world where it says I heart radio or I heart

media or whatever podcasts. guaranteed it says

something about guaranteed human and i'm just

like are you kidding me and i bet you the recording

this is guaranteed human as an ai bot probably

is i don't know i wouldn't surprise me like i

know how they work yeah but yeah no the geekcast

radio network guaranteed human and on that note

folks on that note i i think that's about all

we got today yeah i think so too so thank you

as always for listening to altered geek uh remember

if you like what you hear to subscribe to the

show and all your various favorite podcast platforms

or If you'd like to make your job easier, go

to geekcastradio .com and listen there. Do you

guys think that you would actually listen to

AI podcasts? Would they interest you? Maybe,

maybe not. Let us know on the comment section

or on our social media. Thank you as always again

for listening to Altered Geek. I've been your

host, Steve Megatron with TF2 and Mike. And until

next time. Get altered. Get geeky. With the Altered

Geeks. Join the discussion. Let's dive into it.

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