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Amazon Wants People to Pay for Podcasts (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: There are several hundred thousand podcasts available through Apple's podcast app, and all of them cost the same amount: nothing. Starting today, you can have access to a far smaller slate of podcasts for a few bucks a month over at Audible, the audio books service owned by Amazon. Audible is betting that avid podcast fans will pay $4.95 per month for Channels, an exclusive selection of ad-free original podcasts, comedy performances, and audio renditions of written articles. The subscription is free for current Audible members. While Apple has always loomed large over podcasting, other big companies like Amazon, Google, and Spotify are beginning to inch into the space. Channels is Amazon's first major foray into the business and puts it in a position to be both a platform for and creator of new shows. "They are doing to audio what they did with Prime Video -- it's vertical integration, and it puts them in a position where they can firmly participate in the larger development of culture," said Nick Quah, who writes the podcasting newsletter Hot Pod.Is the right move? Will people for it? AdAge writes:A lot of people don't think there will be a Netflix of podcasting. Andy Bowers, chief content officer of Slate's Panoply Network, said the best chance for a subscription model to work would be to offer one that offers ad-free versions of many of the most popular podcasts that exist today. "Short of that -- and I don't see anyone doing that at the moment -- I think the ad-supported version is here to stay for a while," he said. Still, a handful of other podcasting businesses have begun experimenting with paid premium services. Acast, a podcast app, created an option for its podcasters to begin charging for content earlier this year. Midroll Media charges $4.99 a month for a service called Howl that offers access to original shows and archives of popular podcasts like "WTF with Marc Maron."
but man listening to Art Bell on AM was awesome. What a kook but that was some good entertainment.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I've heard several podcasts that I'd be willing to support, but I'm not sure that I would have payed to give them a shot originally. There is a lot of noise out there in the podcasting world compared to the signal. A paywall sounds like a great way to fail.
Not necessarily. Most of the podcasts I listen to, the people know very well what they are talking about. BBC, CBC, TVO, NPR. If you get your podcasts from good sources, they will have good content. There is nothing specific about a podcast that requires it to be of inferior quality.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I for one will not pay for it since the challenge is the same as over the air radio, endorsements. The podcast owners need to figure that out.
People said the exact same thing about cable TV in the 1970's. "Why would I pay for something I can get for fee with an antenna?"
Amazon has to make it worth it. Time will tell. There are a ton of crappy podcasts out there. Maybe some pre-filtering would be worth it.
Not for me, mind you...I'm too cheap to pay for anything like that, but Amazon seems to think that they have something worth paying for.
Just my $0.02.
-JJS
Same here, but it goes downhill pretty quickly when you get off the top 20 lists.
You are wrong.
There are plenty of good podcasts (I prefer netcast actually) where the people definitely know what they are talking about. Pretty much any NPR or TWIT netcast is worth listening to, imo.
If you want a specific example, try listening to Security Now some time.
Anyway, to the point of the article, skipping a couple of minutes of "commercials" (hit the FF button 2 times) is totally worth the price of the netcast ($0)
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
$5 per month for this service, $5 per month for that service... pretty soon your monthly media bill looks like the overly expensive cable bill you cut the cord to get rid of.
I would be willing to pay for the netcasts I listen to currently (well, most of them anyway) if they went to a paid subscription model.
As long as they are free with ads, I am cool with that too.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
So what? 90% of everything is crap.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Which is about the same value as a podcast.
Advertisements are not only annoying but they are actually more costly then you may think. The difference between Hulu Plus with ads vs Hulu Plan ad-free is $4. That's the best $4 I ever spent. If I make more then $12/hr then it is more cost-effective to go ad free.
So if they had a podcast that I really liked then I would buy it. I already donate more then $5/mo to pod casters anyway.
Macs have roughly 10% of the computers marketshare. Guess what the other 90% is?
That's completely bogus.
I learn a lot _AND_ am entertained, sometimes by the same podcasts, sometimes by different podcasts. Just like TV shows, movies, books, etc., there's far more interesting podcasts than I can keep up with (even at 2x).
There are ALSO video podcasts (which this new service isn't really).. e.g. various CNET video podcasts that I subscribe to and watch (at 2x, just like I listen to podcasts at 2x).
audio files of people talking about shit they don't know much about and that you only listen to because you're bored out of your mind.
You are simply listening to the wrong ones.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I would pay a small fee for podcasts, in some cases, not even for ad free versions, just to have a _complete_ feed of podcasts available.
Most podcasts have only a short feed (amount of podcasts currently available), even if they've been going on for years. Some others have long or even complete feeds (e.g. the "Giant Bombcast" video game podcast). If I find out about a new podcast, I'd like to be able to start at the beginning. EVEN if some of the info deals with (then-) current events, I'd still like to be the one to choose whether to listen to the 'old' ones or not.
As much as I hate ads, I usually listen to live reads in podcasts, partially because they're often so short they're hard to skip (at 2x).. and partially because they often make jokes and such (e.g. Adam Carolla) during the read. More "standard" commercial breaks, I still skip past.
But just the ability to have full feeds of these various podcasts (but still listenable in my current app, or at least in an app that will still let me play at 2x and keep track of which ones I've listened to), would be something for which I'd pay a couple bucks a month at most.
I have more podcasts than I can listen to, and most of them are free. I pay a subscription for an ad-free version of the Savage Lovecast, but that version also comes with extra content. I listen to the ads of the other shows and for the most part, it's actually stuff I want. I also listen to a lot of shows from the CBC, so I've kind of already paid for those.
I can't believe they can give me greater value than what I'm getting. Shows in my schedule, more plentiful than I can actually handle, and all of them finding their own way to monetise. The current hands-off system is one of the best things Apple has ever done. The only people that don't like it are advertisers that don't want to be cut out of any advertising loops. (Meanwhile, the cost per conversion that podcast advertisers pay is insanely cheap.)
Most podcasts either are already ad-free, or the ads are equivalent to a commercial break... which people already deal with on television and every other form of media.
Nobody is going to pay for this.
Why can't we call these things what they are?
"Podcasts" are audio files of people talking about shit they don't know much about and that you only listen to because you're bored out of your mind.
On the contrary Podcasts are probably the outstanding example of user-generated content (or at least non big-corporation content).
Video is extremely difficult to make look professional, but making a podcast with professional or at least decent sound quality is doable and far cheaper. Distribution is also a big advantage since you don't need to adhere to specific formats like a television or even radio program does such as being X minutes long or having planned commercial breaks.
And instead of "people talking about shit they don't know much about" you get knowledgeable experts who for once don't have to worry about meddling from corporate overlords who are ignorant or have different objectives (like promoting a corporate agenda).
I stole this Sig
The difference here is that 1970s cable TV offered vastly different programming that was previously unavailable. That was its main attraction - fans of niche TV genres could find channels that catered to specific subjects.
This appears to be moving in the opposite direction. The idea that users are paralyzed by option overload and want to pay someone to limit those options (the 'far smaller slate')? Doesn't sound like a money maker to me.
I think that money would take away the soul of most of the podcasts. I want to listen to people who do podcasts out of the sheer love and interest toward a topic, whatever it may be. Forcing podcasts to a pay-to-listen model would, first of all, with absolute certainty introduce DRM into the mix, and that in turn would likely limit your listening options. It would likely also take away some of that amateurish approach from the free flowing discussion and make it too formal and strict in the sense of what topics are covered and how.
-SR
I'm not really into podcasts but most of the ones I have heard had ads and were pretty terrible with them. Just in the middle of content they'll launch into a ridiculous pitch like "Hey let me tell you about squarespace!" And it's always fucking Squarespace or Wix or some stupid shaving company, and the pitches are particularly annoying when the host pretends to really use and care about the product. I KNOW YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT THE MONEY JUST FINISH IT ALREADY!!
Where were you 13 years ago when podcasts became popoular? (You know, named after the ubiquitous iPod, which only played audio at the time)/ The fight's been lost and everyone calls it podcasts.
And to be more accurate, they're really more like on-demand radio shows, which can be well produced or crap. You'll find those that have a history of broadcasting on the radio are generally of very high quality. But instead of streaming it, you download it as a file.
And Apple's been down this path - earlier this year some podcasters called out Apple to update the podcast app and allow stuff like paid subscriptions and stuff...
Amazon Wants People to Pay for Podcasts
The Onion called. They want their headline back.
No charges will be laid if returned within 48 hours.
Which is about what the podcast creator will get after Amazon takes its cut.
FTFY
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Why can't we call these things what they are?
"Podcasts" are audio files of people talking about shit they don't know much about
Like how Slashdot posts are text files by people talking about shit they don't know much about?
This is known as corporations taking over the public space. Companies move into a physical location with a park for example, put up a fence, hire security guards, close the doors at night and tell you that you cannot walk on the grass or busk. The exact same thing happens in the digital realm. The world wide web was invented and all the content was freely created by knowledgeable enthusiasts and freely available to the people. Now everything is being put behind paywalls or loaded with flash advertising. Podcasting was an early victim of this process. Podcasts used to be accessible from many aggregation sites and then iTunes came along and you could only get at the ones on iTunes through Apples application. The field also became infested with for profit enterprises which made money by dumbing down and appealing to the ignorant. These moves by big companies to put material inside walled gardens kills off high quality free amateur content.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
The top 20 list can be a poor guide to quality because the most popular means the most people and most people are ignorant so the shows cater for them by dumbing down. This is fine too if you too are ignorant. If you are for example looking for nerdy stuff in depth stuff about Astronomy steer clear of NASA as it's output is designed for children. The podcast you want is Cheap Astronomy Podcasts with Steve Nerlich. The same holds true for most content, e.g. listen to these advertisement free podcasts.
BacterioFiles - Microbes
ToxTalk - toxicology
FQXi Podcast - the latest ideas in foundational physics and cosmology
Binge Thinking History - Topics in post medieval history
Public Lecture Podcast - University of Bath
Public Lecture Podcast - London School of Economics
omega tau - Science and Engineering
It will be very sad if all of this brilliance is replaced by general purpose paid for content like TWiT and similar.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
You really need to visit TotalDrama. Let me know what you think of the TWIT Network after that.
I'm a "producer" of the No Agenda Show. Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak often talk about the corrupting influence advertising has on modern media and so therefore can't really run ads and have any integrity. It's not always a great show, but it is good enough most of the time to get me through my long commute. They also actively engage listeners and have created a community around the show. They use custom artwork, contributed by listeners for every show. A lot of it is quite good, very professional looking artwork. They encourage you to share the program, and seed Bit torrent with it. The server space is contributed, as is maintenance/moderation of the IRC chat room and live stream. If you donate enough you get recognition during the episode if you like, and there are various rewards that you receive in return for supporting the show. And they occasionally have meet-ups (put together by listeners, not by Curry or Dvorak) where fellow "producers" get together. Other podcasts do some of the same things but for the most part they seem to just recreate the same old talk radio format, just with a cheaper distribution channel. And of course they are beholden to the sponsors, who can destroy a podcast with one phone call.
The traditional way of producing audio and video, along with expecting to pay for it through ad revenue, is dead except for sports and big blockbuster films. The expense of paying for board operators and production people backing up talent (and in the case of NPR and other traditional media outlets producers, editors and copywriters), isn't going to be sustainable when your download rates are measured in the hundreds of thousands and ad responses are under single digit percentages. Direct payment and community building around your production are what will drive media in the future. Sure, Curry's skill as a DJ and audio engineer comes in handy when producing since he can act as a board op and talent, but as audio production tools improve opportunities for novice podcasters will follow. What's really going to be difficult is video podcasting because we're still not able to produce a convincing virtual set, but with all that retail space opening up in the post-amazon retail world, maybe someone will figure that out too.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Relating to what you said, I found this interesting piece from a few years back. No doubt this is starting to be the new norm around the world, also on the Internet. The Internet in itself is in a sense a free-for-all space, but there are indeed walled gardens where most of the content has been amassed.
-SR