I agree, we might be leaving the golden age rather than entering it. The article mentions Spotify exclusive shows and we have already seen several other paywalled shows from companies like Audible and Stitcher. Meanwhile a number of podcasters are taking control of their own shows, not joining a podcast network or content company, and moving the show to platforms like Patreon. That is great for the content creators themselves, but it hurts discoverability and just isn't great for the podcast listener. The days of all the best shows being available to everyone for free are over. The days of most podcasts just being people having fun and sharing their passions with the world are over. We are entering the world were podcasting is big business.
> That is great for the content creators themselves, but it hurts discoverability and just isn't great for the podcast listener.
I subscribe to a couple of shows which offer free versions, discoverable through Apple's directory and others, and paid "upgrades". Those paid upgrades come into the same app I use for listening to podcasts generally. I actually think things today are pretty well set up for podcasters who want to be independent but still get paid.
I subscribe to a few as well. The some episodes free and some paid model is the better for discoverability than everything behind a paywall, but it can still be off-putting to new listeners. Although my primary problem with that model is that it isn't sustainable for heavy listeners. Each show can cost anywhere from $2-$10 per month. That adds up quickly. I end up spending more on podcasts a month than I do on Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify combined. I am happy to do that because I spend more time listening to podcasts than using those three services and I want to support the content creators I enjoy, but that isn't financially realistic for an overwhelming majority of consumers.
Yeah, that's fair that the individual podcast pricing may not scale for the consumer the way the Spotify model does.
I write fiction on the side and am able to put my ebooks (and print books, for that matter) into a variety of stores. If a model could be started through which a podcast producer can put their podcast in multiple stores so that it's a paid show but available in Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, etc., that would be a nice model indeed.
It's doubtful that Spotify would attempt such a model.
I can't speak to Spotify, but Netflix certainly seems sustainable with their billions in yearly profit. Either way, the average consumer doesn't care about sustainability. They just see that Netflix provides 100s of hours of fully produced TV and movies every month. Then they see for the same price they can get a few hours a month of people talking in front of microphones. There is a huge disconnect in perceived cost there. Many podcasts currently make up that difference simply from the goodwill of their audience who wants to "support" them. I'm not sure that is scalable.
Wow, I've never even heard of a podcast for which you have to pay. The podcasts I listen to are either subsidised by political and literary journals, publishing houses, and research centres, supported by mass donations, produced by the BBC, and/or include a small number of adverts.
It’s just a start. The podcast world will continue to be very fragmented.
There are some small consolidation here and there. There are a few podcasts becoming paid / subscription based business. But most podcasts will be niche , small , and free. More fun people will start their own podcasts :)
I think it's like the indie music scene. Sure, some bands make a living at it, or try to. But most musicians are playing for the sheer joy of playing, going to a little club and making a racket for a dozen of their closest friends.
In the long run, there will be plenty of niche podcasts with dozens, maybe hundreds of listeners - not enough to make a living, but an audience is its own reward.
Most instagramers are not influencers who can monetize well. Most instagramers don’t have a large follower base, which totally makes sense.
few podcasters can make a living from producing podcasts. Most podcasters make podcasts for fun. Some use podcasts to cross promote other things (eg books, music , e-commerce...). More and more companies produce podcasts, but they just treat podcasts as an addition to their social accounts to build audience and create awareness: https://lnns.co/b0jVr85WkQn
I'm not sure that's inherently bad. In some ways I think it's useful to divorce the medium from the revenue model, and I think the medium (audio content you can listen do anywhere and any time) might be well-suited to some content that just can't be paid for if the only revenue option is ads (or donors, I guess). Maybe it's too niche, or covers subject matter that isn't advertiser-friendly, or has high production costs (for fiction content in particular I think there's a ceiling to the level of ambition that's possible now because voice talent is expensive), etc. I'm interested to see what kinds of content might be unlocked through experimentation with new revenue models.
Many podcast platforms are already basically setting up ad networks. Content creators supply time stamps and the CDNs stitch in ads at the point of download into those.time stamps. At the moment, conversion rates are highest when the host reads the ads, so there's still a lot of work for the creator but minimal effort for the advertiser.
It's likely that eventually the bar will lower and people will stop minding less integrated ads. But the advertiser pays per download (right now, see next paragraph) and doesn't pay the host to do the reading, so from the buying end it's simple and generally they work with the Podcast hosting platform who then farms it out to creators.
NPR released their Remote Audio Data spec recently and many players are working to integrate it. Essentially the ID3 tags have several time stamps marked and a call back URL. The podcast player then delivers events to that URI indicating the listener listened through that time stamp with some other metadata.
The automation and ad network-ization is already in motion.
Do you have any information on who? I've mostly heard about players announcing they won't support it, and Apple and Spotify have their own analytics systems they'd probably prefer people use.
So I do seem to have jumped the gun. It definitely appears that most the indie podcatchers are in wait and see mode. Almost all the "we won't support it" has a "yet" or "at this time" clause.
The big thing is Apple. Apple is definitely the big boy in the pond and NPR is in talks to get it working.
The thing is, if other podcatchers continue to refuse to provide data somehow, the advertisers are going to start refusing to pay for downloads and only for impressions verifiable on Apple, Spotify, and Google's apps. The end result is the closing off into walled gardens.
We already have Stitcher and Spotify buying up podcasts and keeping them exclusive to their platforms.
It can go either way but like...it's bad if it doesn't go this way. Either you're buying podcasts per episode or trapped on Google/Apple/Spotify's horrific podcast apps.
The apps are horrific. Google compresses audio to the point you get obvious quality loss and artifacting, even to my non-audiophile ears on $20 earbuds.
Apple Podcasts is a PITA once you've subscribed to more than 10 podcasts. It's really badly set up if you subscribe to a serial audio drama and have several seasons to catch up on.
Spotify thinks podcasts are just playlists in order from newest to oldest and wow is that a barebones and impossible UX for anything but a talkshow type podcast.
At my last job we worked in internet tech for radio stations. Most of the station money came from the auto industry. I guess that makes sense since a non-smart radio fits with driving better than touch screens.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, all that to say, it'll probably come from markets that fit how/when/where consumers listen: exercise, entertainment, etc.
Ads can (and already are) stitched into podcasts based on download location. GeoIP isn't perfect, but it's enough to do location aware advertising in the same vein as terrestrial radio..
Oh wow, I hadn't considered that but it's obviously simple to do. Here's a funny thought: your script downloads the file with requests from two IPs associated with different locations and gets a union of the audio for you to listen to (thus cutting out any location-based segments).
