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How Podcasts Became a Seductive -- and Sometimes Slippery -- Mode of Storytelling (newyorker.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Podcasting has offered advertisers a new means of reaching demographically targeted consumers. Many podcasts feature extended endorsements, read by the host, that often include a discount code for a product or service. For listeners accustomed to a separation between advertising and editorial, the blurring of lines can be disconcerting (or embarrassing, such as when podcast hosts like Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss expound on how much they enjoy wearing Me Undies). For advertisers that have spent heavily on podcasts, like the omnipresent Casper and Blue Apron, the effectiveness of such campaigns can be measured in increased sales. A representative for Blue Apron, which has launched its own branded podcast, "Why We Eat What We Eat," in addition to advertising on hundreds of shows, told me, "We view podcasts less as an advertising channel and more as a content channel to win new customers and engage existing customers."
Podcast advertising remains a relatively new science. Producers and advertisers can instantly tabulate how many times a show has been downloaded, but it's harder to ascertain how many people have listened to the whole thing. A commercial marketplace puts pressure on podcasters to create content that can attract millions of listeners, which does not necessarily make for the strongest, or most subtle, content. Linsky, with some frustration, noted that it doesn't matter much to an advertiser if a podcast takes an hour to record or months to report; all that matters is whether it attracts a lot of listeners. New ways of monetizing podcasts are being explored, including a paid-subscription model; apps such as Stitcher Premium offer ad-free listening and bonus episodes.
Podcast advertising remains a relatively new science. Producers and advertisers can instantly tabulate how many times a show has been downloaded, but it's harder to ascertain how many people have listened to the whole thing. A commercial marketplace puts pressure on podcasters to create content that can attract millions of listeners, which does not necessarily make for the strongest, or most subtle, content. Linsky, with some frustration, noted that it doesn't matter much to an advertiser if a podcast takes an hour to record or months to report; all that matters is whether it attracts a lot of listeners. New ways of monetizing podcasts are being explored, including a paid-subscription model; apps such as Stitcher Premium offer ad-free listening and bonus episodes.
I'm just glad we have Slashdot, which never has advertisements posing as new articles, like those nasty podcasts.
The combination of original and advertising has long been the standard in radio, and is just accepted as the cost of keeping the lights on. What's so special about podcasts?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
A radio announcer promoting products and reading advertising is far from anything new. Unless you were born in the last decade and wasn't aware of radio(A type of podcast broadcasted wirelessly to radios(old school iPodlike devices which didn't hold music internally, but rather "streamed" it wirelessly)).
I know, I'm old. But seriously, they're directly copying this form of advertising from Radio. I actually found it charming when Pat the NES punk started doing it. The clearest indicator that radio is dying was when the advertisers move to the new media.
To be honest I'm not going to be sad to see the old media go. The new media can be just as bad, but it can also be better
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That I never listen to podcasts. Never.
Want to tell me a story? Write it down. Then I might read it.
And I have never watched a pre-roll video. Try to force an animated ad of some kind on me, and I close the window and do something else (sometimes reluctantly, if I really wanted to read the actual content).
I listen to podcasts in the car, and only in the car. It's generally frowned upon to read whilst sitting in the drivers seat of a moving vehicle.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I've seen YouTube replays of the old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where during the middle of the show, Ed would do a Budweiser or dog food commercial without a "station break".....you saw this thing quite often in the middle of shows on TV in the earlier days.
This type of thing is only new due to the podcast being a relatively "new" media outlet.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Before TV, it was a regular feature in radio programs. Literally as a part of the story, without any break from the plot. A neighbor would come over to visit the main character, make small talk, and casually mention "By the way, I wanted to tell you about my new Veeblefetzer dishwasher. Ever since Melvin bought one for me, housework has become so much easier!"
I really wish all my favorite podcast creators would go the route that Sam Harris et al have, where ad-free versions are available to people who support the podcast directly or through Patreon. I know Patreon has its issues but being able to easily and automatically support content creators I trust and enjoy seems to be the antidote to the awful ad-based revenue system we've settled into these days.
The combination of original and advertising has long been the standard in radio, and is just accepted as the cost of keeping the lights on. What's so special about podcasts?
Because it's backwards from the radio side of things.
Broadcast radio had clear - and large - upfront costs. One needed a broadcast tower, radio transmission equipment, a microphone, and a place to put it. One also needed frequency on which to broadcast...which meant an FCC license, which also had compliance rules that needed to be observed. Those things needed to be maintained and managed, so engineers were needed. All of that stuff cost a massive amount of money, meaning that one either needed a pile of money or an investor with a pile of money before broadcast could begin. I don't recall Carnegie or Rockefeller having enough interest to go into broadcast, so pretty much everyone who wasn't a university or a massive corporation depended on advertisers to help pay the costs of broadcasting.
Podcasting can be done for peanuts. Libsyn will host for $15/month, but an industrious person can use Wordpress and a shared web hosting account to do it for half that. I've occasionally spent more than that on lunch. Apple and Google will list your podcast in their respective directories for free, or people can subscribe by clicking a link on an RSS feed. Add in $250 in up front costs for a Shure microphone and a Presonus audio interface if you're feeling fancy, and anybody can start podcasting for literally thousands of times less money than it cost to start a broadcast radio station.
It was impossible to be a hobbyist AM radio broadcaster*. It is very possible to be a hobbyist podcaster. Earlier podcasts seldom had advertisements because those broadcasts were either straight up hobbyists doing it for the love of whatever-their-topic, or extensions of something else (e.g. churches distributing Sunday sermons). The audience was largely incidental, and the costs were fixed.
As podcasts grew in popularity, sea level rose, meaning people were looking to get money in exchange for a higher quality product. Podcasts needed money to help make that happen, meaning episodes started to end with donation requests, or advertisers started to offer money in exchange for airtime.
It's not that podcasts are special, it's that making money off of them was ex post facto to their surge in popularity, while broadcast needed it from the outset.
*Yes, pirate radio and similar low powered transmissions for hobbies are a thing. However, the reach was never going to get big enough for advertising to even be on the table. It's entirely possible for a small, home-based podcaster to get a sponsorship deal, which is a further extension of the point being made.