On April 20, Apple opened the can of paid podcasts on its platform, monthly subscriptions with twine in between. A few days later, Spotify, which has been taking podcasting more seriously than anyone else for some time (I’m looking at you, Apple), announced the same for its application, but with better economic conditions for podcasters. The Swedes will know.
We have seen similar approaches in the past, such as iVoox with its Originals, programs only available in the premium plan; Amazon’s with Audible, more aimed at selected creators with a lot of previous filming; or Podimo’s, with monetization for creators but with somewhat more complex finances. Several approaches to achieve direct monetization of podcasting, but with the push of ocean liners such as Apple and Spotify will take on a new dimension. That is my great hope: facilitating and standardizing payment for podcasts will imply a forced professionalization much more complicated so far. I don’t say it as a podcaster, I say it as a listener.
The contract against disappointment
I’ve been podcasting long enough, so long in front of the microphone as under the headphones, as if to have detected the predominant pattern in those who launch into a podcast. In many cases, amateurs or corporations, the project dies after a few weeks or months due to the few reproductions of each episode and the lack of ideas on how to move forward in that sense. Little to do, and paid subscriptions are hardly an option if the audience has not reached a minimum.
Good podcasts with acceptable audiences will thus have an incentive not to slow down and fall into droughts that last for months.
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In other cases, the project survives for a long time because it does achieve good numbers of listeners, but there comes a time when work or family obligations outweigh what has also become an obligation without a direct return. At that bitter point live several podcasts that I listen to: They are not abandoned, but the lack of that return makes them fall on their list of priorities, they go on to chain a few episodes in a row with months of drought. Impossible to make your listening habit (daily or weekly).
I understand who complains about these movements. Seeing how what used to be free becomes cost money always involves friction and disappointment, but nothing like money to serve as an incentive to perseverance. Patting on the back and thanks are comforting, but with a limit. Y the prices we can expect for those paid podcasts they are quite small. Apple’s minimum is $ 0.49 per month.
The video format has not needed the sound of silver to survive, in many cases very well; at least to approach it as a complementary income to a traditional job. Its scale is different: what on YouTube are four cats in podcasting is a crowd.
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With a few it can be worth
I pay for a weekly podcast. Those three euros a month assure me that every Friday at dawn, the episode I hope will be there. No excuses, no week breaks, no delays. The creator has a contract with which we checkout every day 1: we pay you, you make the deliveries.
We can talk about sponsorships as a free alternative. Well of course it is possible and luckily it happens, but it is part of a long additional conversation that can be boiled down to: ad agencies have little incentive to spend time and money on podcasts, and amateur podcasters who garner good audiences lack knowledge and contacts to get started with it. You can, but it is not usual to get there.
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A subscription of one or two euros per month saves the process and reaching two or three hundred subscribers can be more than enough to keep up and have a fixed incentive each month. Nobody asks to get rich with a weekly podcast, but at least pay for a couple of dinners a month and that hosting and the microphone is free.
I hope that my favorite podcasts, especially those that find it difficult to maintain consistency, will be encouraged to make the leap to payment and thus reach a fixed publication rate, without further droughts. “Free” always tastes better, but the journey is usually shorter.
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