Time To Get Off The Fence, 'Casters
I case you haven't noticed, I've been tearing along in the past few months on a rant against excessive advertising and the obvious effects it has been having on our nation's media. (Click on my Culture of Whores tag for a primer.) Things just reached a tipping point for me on the podcast front, so it's time to unveil my next cunning plan.
So far, I have successfully and happily subscribed to a number of "free" podcasts. You can pay for individual 'casts, but so far the number of free ones proves more than entertaining enough.
I put "free" in scare quotes back there because an amazing number of podcasts have started inserting ads to offset costs. It's a truly alarming and amazing number. After all, if you have a radio show, your costs are fixed. Every additional podcast subscriber, though, costs more, meaning the more popular MP3 players and your show become, the more you have to pay to get the show out there. Ads must have seemed the most likely fix. Ira Glass in a This American Life intro was refreshingly direct: He said what while an ad inserted in the broadcast version of TAL would fetch around $10,000, one inserted in the podcast fetched twice that amount. With donations down, most public radio produced shows are resorting to the ad money . . . even though technically this makes them commercial by default.
Glass was as refreshingly direct in another 'cast when he noted that it costs WBEZ, TAL host station, about $.51 per listener to maintain the server storage and pay for bandwidth that provides their one show per week. Fifty-one cents. They must have a shit-load of listeners, though, because he also noted the station's bandwidth alone racks up over $150 thousand a year in charges. (I would be curious to know how many subscribers that is.)
Still, let's focus on that first number, 51¢. That's not much. I would be totally willing to pay for the bandwidth and storage I consume. One must add administration costs, of course. That's why last year I gave them $10 over my cell phone. (Then they started running the extra ads and I totally regretted that donation.)
And that's the crux of this post's biscuit. Either a podcast funds itself with listener donations, or it runs ads. It should never do both! No self-respecting podcaster should both beg funds from listeners and slag their ears with paid spots.
I know this is problematic. Developing the infrastructure to collect such small amounts would be onerous and burdensome, especially for operations run as someone's hobby. Hey, the stuff I stuff in my ears ranges in production quality from at best a cramped recording studio supplemented with used radio copy, to at least a guy yapping at his laptop in his pickup. Most of it is bunches of folks chatting together on recorded Skype connections.
Which brings me to iTunes. They already have a small-amount online money collection system. I often buy whimsical downloaded musical purchases for a buck or less. What if iTunes had a feature somewhere between these paid single downloads and free podcasts? What if, for a small fee one could subscribe to the same material one gets in the regular podcast, except with all the ads removed?
Taking This American Life as an example, a $2.00 per year subscription would cover all bandwidth and storage costs, all money collection transaction costs, and still leave revenue for the host station.
I can't see a downside to this proposal. Those who hate, hate, hate the ads would get entertainment without needing to angrily fast-forward or break their teeth gritting. Those who produce the 'casts would get their storage and distribution costs covered and should earn a small profit on their shows. Furthermore, since the shows would be necessarily shorter in length than the sponsored monstrosities, those bandwidth costs would drop even more. Recipients of the sponsored downloads might be eligible for extra material not featured in the regular show. And Apple could develop an alternate revenue stream. Not a big one, but probably one that brings in more than, say, Country & Western artists. (I kid, I kid. Sort of.)
Furthermore, shows like Freakonomics would be able to compare the rate of adoption between the two versions of their shows, perhaps gaining insight into market forces previously suspected but unmeasured. Really, how many listeners would pay a small fee to remove ads? The market must know!
For my next trick, I'm going to write pleas outlining this proposal and send them out to all the 'casts that currently stoop to advertising. I figure one random nutjob bombing iTunes with emails is one thing; for the producers of shows to do so should be quite another matter. I may share any that I truly think are entertaining.
I'm curious to know if any of you out there think this proposed service, ultra-low-cost ad-free subscriber podcasting, would be something you would consider using.
So far, I have successfully and happily subscribed to a number of "free" podcasts. You can pay for individual 'casts, but so far the number of free ones proves more than entertaining enough.
I put "free" in scare quotes back there because an amazing number of podcasts have started inserting ads to offset costs. It's a truly alarming and amazing number. After all, if you have a radio show, your costs are fixed. Every additional podcast subscriber, though, costs more, meaning the more popular MP3 players and your show become, the more you have to pay to get the show out there. Ads must have seemed the most likely fix. Ira Glass in a This American Life intro was refreshingly direct: He said what while an ad inserted in the broadcast version of TAL would fetch around $10,000, one inserted in the podcast fetched twice that amount. With donations down, most public radio produced shows are resorting to the ad money . . . even though technically this makes them commercial by default.
Glass was as refreshingly direct in another 'cast when he noted that it costs WBEZ, TAL host station, about $.51 per listener to maintain the server storage and pay for bandwidth that provides their one show per week. Fifty-one cents. They must have a shit-load of listeners, though, because he also noted the station's bandwidth alone racks up over $150 thousand a year in charges. (I would be curious to know how many subscribers that is.)
Still, let's focus on that first number, 51¢. That's not much. I would be totally willing to pay for the bandwidth and storage I consume. One must add administration costs, of course. That's why last year I gave them $10 over my cell phone. (Then they started running the extra ads and I totally regretted that donation.)
And that's the crux of this post's biscuit. Either a podcast funds itself with listener donations, or it runs ads. It should never do both! No self-respecting podcaster should both beg funds from listeners and slag their ears with paid spots.
I know this is problematic. Developing the infrastructure to collect such small amounts would be onerous and burdensome, especially for operations run as someone's hobby. Hey, the stuff I stuff in my ears ranges in production quality from at best a cramped recording studio supplemented with used radio copy, to at least a guy yapping at his laptop in his pickup. Most of it is bunches of folks chatting together on recorded Skype connections.
Which brings me to iTunes. They already have a small-amount online money collection system. I often buy whimsical downloaded musical purchases for a buck or less. What if iTunes had a feature somewhere between these paid single downloads and free podcasts? What if, for a small fee one could subscribe to the same material one gets in the regular podcast, except with all the ads removed?
Taking This American Life as an example, a $2.00 per year subscription would cover all bandwidth and storage costs, all money collection transaction costs, and still leave revenue for the host station.
I can't see a downside to this proposal. Those who hate, hate, hate the ads would get entertainment without needing to angrily fast-forward or break their teeth gritting. Those who produce the 'casts would get their storage and distribution costs covered and should earn a small profit on their shows. Furthermore, since the shows would be necessarily shorter in length than the sponsored monstrosities, those bandwidth costs would drop even more. Recipients of the sponsored downloads might be eligible for extra material not featured in the regular show. And Apple could develop an alternate revenue stream. Not a big one, but probably one that brings in more than, say, Country & Western artists. (I kid, I kid. Sort of.)
Furthermore, shows like Freakonomics would be able to compare the rate of adoption between the two versions of their shows, perhaps gaining insight into market forces previously suspected but unmeasured. Really, how many listeners would pay a small fee to remove ads? The market must know!
For my next trick, I'm going to write pleas outlining this proposal and send them out to all the 'casts that currently stoop to advertising. I figure one random nutjob bombing iTunes with emails is one thing; for the producers of shows to do so should be quite another matter. I may share any that I truly think are entertaining.
I'm curious to know if any of you out there think this proposed service, ultra-low-cost ad-free subscriber podcasting, would be something you would consider using.