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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."
Of course people who produce content want to be paid. Unlike people who code in their garage and think information wants to be free...
Remove shoe, shoot self in foot.
cat
Good luck getting subscriptions at that rate. HBO is only like $25.
A podcast goes pay-to-play.
The title makes it sound like all of podcasting is suddenly going to a subscription model which is ridiculous hyperbole.
This is stupid because nobody makes money for content directly off consumer in any broadcast medium. Why does the sudden addition of the Internet change this in people's minds? I pay $0 directly to the networks for their broadcast content. I pay $0 directly to the cable companies for their cable content (though the cable provider does filter some of my money back to the stations -- it's still not me paying the station; if it was, I could order just the channels I want). The only time a content provider gets money directly from me is Pay Per View, which seems limited to good boxing matches and pr0n.
The same idiocy of assuming the Net must play by different rules goes into advertising decisions too: execs get 0 click-through from TV ads, but they freak out when they don't get X% click through from Net ads that they are paying significantly less for. Consider yourself lucky for being able to shove your brand into my face for 15 seconds and then move on, dude.
All's true that is mistrusted
I don't understand why people are so crazy over podcasts. We have had similar things for years now through things like realplayer. And from what I heard of them podcasts sound pretty bad- (but maybe I have havent heard enought) -- And YAYA I know its special cause its for the Ipod. But with that in mind it shows the stupidity of other companies for not jumping on the idea long ago cause the technology of it is not anything new.
The length of a
I'm suprised they are going with a subscription based model. $7 for 4 episodes and I'll get billed monthly? While I'd consider a subscription for something like the Daily Show aren't podcasts more like songs i.e. something people are willing to spend 99 cents to purchase at will?
http://nyamenation.org/
This seems like a really bad idea.. I've never heard a single podcast that I would pay for, even a few dollars a month.
No podcast is worth $7/month (at least the ones I've heard). That's more than what I used to spend on dial up Internet access.
Zing!
So how is this done?
Cheers,
Ian
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).
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I'm very curious to see how it pans out. It would certainly see a lot of analyst attention, the first paid-for iTunes-only subscription.*
... Desperate Housewives, for the mainstream audience) for $3.98. Or I could pay double for the same amount of plain audio.
Yet this, $7, is almost 4 times the cost of a television show. I could buy two hours of Galactica (or something more popular.
They need to offer a lot more for this to be successful.
99 cents a show is simple enough. That, I'd try out.
This is an unproven medium. A good entry point is required. Individual tracks sold like songs would work well. What they're trying to do will put many people off. Then again, maybe enough people really really like Ricky Gervais. But probably not.
* (iTunes + audible, whatever -- everyone will focus on the Apple end of things; they're more newsworthy, whether or not you agree with it.)
This recalls the discussion we had a while back about online radio. WOXY.com (The Future of Rock and Roll) is also going pay to play.
All of the podcasts of live acts playing in their lounge and also the podcasts of the unsigned band show will be available for download for subscribers, much like the example this article provides.
It looks like the reality has finally hit that nothing is free. At least though, WOXY.com is a good deal. You get the podcasts, and real DJs streaming quality music live over broadband quality streams.
I personally wish everyone the best in their efforts to make entertainment sustainable, independent, and listener supported, both with regard to the new effort via iTunes, and independent groups like WOXY.com who have seen the future of quality entertainment.
Best,
Paul Henrich
I don't think will mean much for 99,9% of podcasters out there, since these guys mentioned in the article were already famous when they started their show and, on top of that, had the benefit of being promoted by a newspaper such as The Guardian. For most podcasters, I still think that donations are the way to go. There's one problem, though. Once you subscribe to a podcast, you rarely return to the site, so I would guess "impulse" donations are harder to come by. Maybe iTunes (or other aggregators) should include a donate option. I know, it will probably never happen, or they'd get a cut, but this seems to be a fair way of compensate podcasters without creating paid subscriptions.
Rush Limbaugh charges like 5$ a month for his podcasts, and Al Franken's and Ed Schultz's are free. This guy is way over-priced. It's not that a subscription model can't work, but you can't charge way more than the market will bear.
> 7 bucks a month a bit high for 2 hours of combined entertainment?
Yes. It was vaguely funny, but really no funnier than listening to any other DJs frankly. It seemed too off-the-cuff for me to believe there was a lot of prep time to justify me paying for episodes.
The irony is I'm happily paying for episodes of The Office (US version, but Ricky Gervais is an executive producer there). At $2 an episode, it's a great deal. However, the show has replay value and nuance, where surprisingly, I catch other things when I re-watch an episode.
The podcast is another issue. At $7/month, there's just not enough content for me to want to pay for the show. If it were daily, then maybe -- basically, I pay $7/mo to listen to them every day. Then again, maybe it would get repetitive and boring if they had to do it every day. Ricky Gervais would be better off selling the BBC version of The Office through ITMS for U.S. viewers rather than chase down a paying podcast to pay the bills.
So, good luck Mr. Gervais. It was fun while it lasted.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
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
Second point is that this is a small subscription - but for a half hour show. If all the shows I listened to also decided to charge a small amount then this would very quickly turn into a lot of money. Maybe it would make more sense to charge for a pick and mix channel of shows?
The submission says, "For the last year, people have been wondering - how to make money off podcasts?" But Apple said when they first released podcasting support in iTunes that there would be support for podcasts you'd have to pay for. So really, nobody's been wondering this for the last year.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I do think the market will drive the price lower than $7/mo though.
Cue 500 comments griping about how people who invest massive effort and talent always ask to be paid for some reason.
I believe they should be paid, but the amount they want for this particular show seems extremely high. $7 dollars for 2 hours of a show that for the most part will be listened to once and then never touched again. Woo wee sign me up for that. I would pay say 15-25 cents per hour but no way would I pay $3.50 per hour. They deserve to get paid for their efforts, but we also deserve to pay a fair price for the content we get in return.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
This is what I used to do a while back:
$ cat ~/bin/ra2pcm.sh
#!/bin/bash
mplayer -nocache -really-quiet -vo null -af resample=44100:0:1 -ao pcm -aofile $HOME/mp3/RADIO/`date +%y-%h-%d-%R`.wav $1
then I got lazy with iTunes & my iPod... If I have to go back to that, fine. It's not the end of the world.
there's no place like ~
I don't think $7/month is a reasonable amount. I wouldn't pay that personally.
Having said that, I do think it is inevitable that this happens. The cost to provide the podcasts, and the exhaustive work creating them, had to be reimbursed from somewhere.
Donations simply don't work - I removed all advertising from a popular site of mine for 6 weeks, and instead put a donations page. 6 weeks and 3,000,000 files served later, the donations totalled $0.
If the Red Cross, World Vision, Salvation Army etc struggle to get donations, having to resort to tv/radio campaigns begging for money, then I don't like any websites chance of succeeding.
Because the medium is an mp3, the advertising is limited to injecting ads like on a radio. The value of those ads (in my opinion) is less because someone might well be commuting or otherwise occupied when listening. It's not like 'traditional' web advertising where the ad is in front of you and can be clicked for an immediate response and/or roi.
Almost as crazy as people that spend $5/day each month on a latte, eh?
Unfortunately, when everybody starts trying to charge a subscription for their "service"...and nobody seems to have many subscriptions under $5/month...they will end up feeding off each other. I only make $X/month, and before, I would save up and purchase something. But now it seems companies want me to keep paying them month after month, and my paycheck can cover only so many subscriptions. I think companies will fast realize that not all of them can charge a subscription, and in fact they might do better not to.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
"Podcast" = recording.
"Subscription" = paying for new recordings.
"Podcasting goes pay-to-play" = buying newly released audio recordings with money. Haven't we been doing that in music shops for decades?
Is this news just because the word "podcast" sounds more exciting than "a recording"?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I think if the content is good enough, people will pay for it.
c tion.php?pId=138&rId=3. (I am not affiliated with them in anyway).
The whole notion of "podcasts" has done audio content is huge disservice. Most podcasts I have heard really are not that good. They are filled with uhmms and ahhs, akward pauses, and often appear adhoc, unedited and unprofessional. We need a better name for properly researched, recorded and edited audio recordings which are not too long, and, as I have before, I suggest we call them "audicles" and move away from the "podcast" debacle.
Non-music audio content has a bright future. I believe though the growth will be in audio books. These must be professionally researched and written, and have high quality content, just like any other book on the market. For some interesting audiobook stats, take a look at http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/processInterfaceA
For primarily text based books, it is relatively straight forward to create an audiobook from them. Just have someone, maybe or maybe not the author, read the text into a microphone and then do some editing. I listed to Bill Clinton's "My Life" on audiobook and quite enjoyed it, and also to the "War of the Worlds", which was also good. I also tried to listen to the Feynman lectures on audio (my academic background is in Engineering Physics), and this was where I felt the audio medium did not work well. For technical topics, it is very difficult to covert a lecture or a book to an audio only medium; instead, you really need to write from scratch specifically targeting the audio medium.
So, this is what we are currently working on, developing audiobooks for software developers. So far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We are currently allowing people to freely download them, but eventually expect people to pay for them. Many people have said that they would gladly pay for the high quality audio books we are providing. But, saying it is one thing, the ultimate test will be when we actually make the switch from free to pay and see how many sales we have.
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
It's been show that you can generate great interest in online content with a yearly subscription, but not with montly subs. When people think about a montly subscription they start to add the numbers in their head and quickly figure out that the thing isn't worth the money... but yearly subscriptions feel less painful. You feel like you're going to get this forever for this one price. Like you're buying the show rather than renting it.
Plus you get way more subscriptions this way from people who eventually drop out. Going for a low cost yearly is much smarter than a higher cost montly rate.
No, he's not. If you've seen him in anything else, or just being himself in an interview, you'd know that he IS NOT David Brent, though naturally he draws on aspects of his life in playing him. And if you think how despicable Brent is in many Office episodes, you could hardly imagine him revealing himself so nakedly -- that it appears to be "real life" is a testament of his skill.
A man plays a violin sitting on a park bench. He is relaxing after a hard day of work, and indulging his personal hobby in a pleasant environment. People in the park pass by and enjoy his music, and he does not care whether they listen or not.
Another man plays on a street corner, an upturned hat at his feet with a few coins inside for people to get the idea. He would play no matter how many generous souls pass him by, he always did like the attention you see - but he could use some more cash and he is making a polite request that those who listen show their appreciation through payment.
Yet another man plays in a nice restaurant, lending a pleasant atmosphere for dining, and on occasion for romance. Not only does the establishment pay him, but he also receives tips from patrons that feel either obligated or grateful.
Is there not a place for all such men in the world? Is one nobler than the others? They are all performing for some reward - one for his own contentment, another for attention, and the other for money - they merely have different definitions of reward. Or should we expect all men of such talents to resign themselves to park benches and play for our delight?