Podcasting Goes Pay-to-Play

James Draven writes "For the last year, people have been wondering - how to make money off podcasts? Some have dabbled with advertising, some with user donations, but now the most popular podcast on iTunes is moving to a subscription model. Bit-Tech is reporting that the Ricky Gervais Show will cost $7 a month starting next week."

Comments

NPR on Audible

[tfinniga]

You've been able to subscribe to NPR podcasts on Audible for quite a while - before the term podcast was widespread anyway. Recently, a few good ones like "Wait wait, don't tell me" have become free via sponsors, while others like "This American Life" are still only available for download for a fee (streaming is free).

Um, no...

[jwachter]

Did either the submitter or the editor bother to read TFA?

The only "news" here is that a single, previously free podcast is now going to sell itself on Audible.com and remove itself from the iTunes Music Store. There is no new functionality being added to iTunes (such as a way for individual podcsters to sell their own content).

Nothing to see here. Please move along.

Jonathan

Re:Correction

[wealthychef]

Not only that, but there are already numerous podcasts which charge money. For example, CarTalk is pay-to-listen if you want the podcast (the broadcast on radio is of course free), and Coast to Coast with ARt Bell is also for a fee, podcast-wise.

Re:pod casts

[Cadallin]

Yes, we've had similar things for years, but the difference now is that they aren't tied to some obnoxious proprietary player, like Realplayer. Podcasts leverage an open standard, RSS, to communicate the release of episodic material generally in a format everyone can play, MP3. You can access podcasts purely with firefox. That's the advantage. And it's not "for the ipod" The idea is that podcasts can function as a portable replacement for Talk Radio. The "Pod" in podcast comes from the fact that the iPod is far and away the most popular portable mp3 player. (You can argue whether that status is deserved or not, but it is true) The ipod name gets attached to vaguely related phenomena in the same way it is common to speak of "xeroxing" regardless of whether the device one uses is manufactured by xerox, or canon, or lexmark, etc.

The real advantage of Podcasts is that they can be accessed by anyone with a computer that has an RSS reader, and can be played back by any device that plays MP3. That's just about as darn near universal as I can imagine. And that IS a worthwhile contribution.

That it also lowers the barrier to entry of distribution is also valuable because podcasters HAVE to compete on quality, whether you are a megacorp with a $10Million dollar studio, or an amateur with just a mic and a dream, or anywhere in between, You compete based on quality of content.

Even better is that in terms of audio quality, studio equipment has become so inexpensive that with an investment of just one or two thousand dollars, it's possible to have quality indistinguishable from a huge studio to the average listener. It really is a means for democratization of the media.