Back in 2017 we’d started an independent podcast network in Melbourne, Australia.
Writing for a trade publication about our commercial aspirations, I realised we were framing our function to be:
“Advertising to get more listeners so we can sell more advertising.
“And in selling more advertising we’ll probably spend more on advertising.”
The noble creative endeavour was in there somewhere. Clouded then rinsed, then rationalised by the necessary money that could seemingly only come from advertising.
No one would dream of another way.
Radio is audio and so is a podcast so podcast = radio and radio survives on advertising.
The aspiration to get ads and sponsors lingered for years.
The arrangement would be legitimising, lucrative and little extra effort beyond existing production.
It was seemingly easy to transfer the model from radio, however the founder of the first significant podcast ad agency, Midroll, would talk about the years spent convincing anyone that it was a good idea.
At scale it works for companies selling the ads.
For the effort/ insight/ uniqueness/ persistence it takes to make a good podcast, plus the value the audience gets from it, advertising is rarely equitable when applied to all but the top percentile of shows.
If ads are not working for the vast majority of podcasts, why not try another way?
The commercial podcast industry matured, consolidated and dug deeper into advertising, but new ways to monetize are more available to all podcast creators
The end-game for making money from a podcast doesn’t have to be selling someone else’s product.