Podcasting Goes Pay-to-Play

James Draven writes "For the last year, people have been wondering - how to make money off podcasts? Some have dabbled with advertising, some with user donations, but now the most popular podcast on iTunes is moving to a subscription model. Bit-Tech is reporting that the Ricky Gervais Show will cost $7 a month starting next week."

7/month

[sirnuke]

No podcast is worth $7/month (at least the ones I've heard). That's more than what I used to spend on dial up Internet access.

NPR on Audible

[tfinniga]

You've been able to subscribe to NPR podcasts on Audible for quite a while - before the term podcast was widespread anyway. Recently, a few good ones like "Wait wait, don't tell me" have become free via sponsors, while others like "This American Life" [thislife.org] are still only available for download for a fee (streaming is free).

Recalls discussion of online radio

[paulthomas]

This recalls the discussion we had a while back about online radio. WOXY.com [woxy.com] (The Future of Rock and Roll) is also going pay to play.

All of the podcasts of live acts playing in their lounge and also the podcasts of the unsigned band show will be available for download for subscribers, much like the example this article provides.

It looks like the reality has finally hit that nothing is free. At least though, WOXY.com is a good deal. You get the podcasts, and real DJs streaming quality music live over broadband quality streams.

I personally wish everyone the best in their efforts to make entertainment sustainable, independent, and listener supported, both with regard to the new effort via iTunes, and independent groups like WOXY.com who have seen the future of quality entertainment.

Best,
Paul Henrich

Expensive

[Salo2112]

Rush Limbaugh charges like 5$ a month for his podcasts, and Al Franken's and Ed Schultz's are free. This guy is way over-priced. It's not that a subscription model can't work, but you can't charge way more than the market will bear.

Re:He was great in the Office

[sg3000]

> 7 bucks a month a bit high for 2 hours of combined entertainment?

Yes. It was vaguely funny, but really no funnier than listening to any other DJs frankly. It seemed too off-the-cuff for me to believe there was a lot of prep time to justify me paying for episodes.

The irony is I'm happily paying for episodes of The Office (US version, but Ricky Gervais is an executive producer there). At $2 an episode, it's a great deal. However, the show has replay value and nuance, where surprisingly, I catch other things when I re-watch an episode.

The podcast is another issue. At $7/month, there's just not enough content for me to want to pay for the show. If it were daily, then maybe -- basically, I pay $7/mo to listen to them every day. Then again, maybe it would get repetitive and boring if they had to do it every day. Ricky Gervais would be better off selling the BBC version of The Office through ITMS for U.S. viewers rather than chase down a paying podcast to pay the bills.

So, good luck Mr. Gervais. It was fun while it lasted.

Re:Well duh!

[bigman2003]

I've been listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast since the first episode, and it is damn funny. (Monkey News kinda lost something after about the 4th week, but the damn diary more than makes up for it.)

This is one podcast I would be interested in paying for. I usually laugh out loud like an idiot during the whole show. These guys are pros, and it shows.

Sadly, the only other podcasts I have found that I like are Major Nelson and Distorted View.

I *might* pay for Major Nelson, just because I am an Xbox geek. But I can't see myself paying for Distorted View, even if I do like it.

Sorry Distorted View guy, it is funny stuff, but I just can't imagine spending money on it.

Um, no...

[jwachter]

Did either the submitter or the editor bother to read TFA?

The only "news" here is that a single, previously free podcast is now going to sell itself on Audible.com and remove itself from the iTunes Music Store. There is no new functionality being added to iTunes (such as a way for individual podcsters to sell their own content).

Nothing to see here. Please move along.

Jonathan

Re:Correction

[wealthychef]

Not only that, but there are already numerous podcasts which charge money. For example, CarTalk is pay-to-listen if you want the podcast (the broadcast on radio is of course free), and Coast to Coast with ARt Bell is also for a fee, podcast-wise.

Re:Well duh!

[sprouty76]

The Ricky Gervais podcast is the only podcast I've unsubscribed to after one episode. But then I never thought The Office was too funny either.

On the other hand, I would pay to listen to Distorted View [distortedview.com] or Nobody Likes Onions [nobodylikesonions.com]. Give them a go, you might just like them.

Re:pod casts

[Cadallin]

Yes, we've had similar things for years, but the difference now is that they aren't tied to some obnoxious proprietary player, like Realplayer. Podcasts leverage an open standard, RSS, to communicate the release of episodic material generally in a format everyone can play, MP3. You can access podcasts purely with firefox. That's the advantage. And it's not "for the ipod" The idea is that podcasts can function as a portable replacement for Talk Radio. The "Pod" in podcast comes from the fact that the iPod is far and away the most popular portable mp3 player. (You can argue whether that status is deserved or not, but it is true) The ipod name gets attached to vaguely related phenomena in the same way it is common to speak of "xeroxing" regardless of whether the device one uses is manufactured by xerox, or canon, or lexmark, etc.

The real advantage of Podcasts is that they can be accessed by anyone with a computer that has an RSS reader, and can be played back by any device that plays MP3. That's just about as darn near universal as I can imagine. And that IS a worthwhile contribution.

That it also lowers the barrier to entry of distribution is also valuable because podcasters HAVE to compete on quality, whether you are a megacorp with a $10Million dollar studio, or an amateur with just a mic and a dream, or anywhere in between, You compete based on quality of content.

Even better is that in terms of audio quality, studio equipment has become so inexpensive that with an investment of just one or two thousand dollars, it's possible to have quality indistinguishable from a huge studio to the average listener. It really is a means for democratization of the media.

Re:Um, no...

[Have Blue]

Actually, it will STILL be available on iTunes- just through the pay Audible section, not the free podcast section.

Free Podcasts -- the low-tech way

[Petronius]

This is what I used to do a while back:

$ cat ~/bin/ra2pcm.sh
#!/bin/bash

mplayer -nocache -really-quiet -vo null -af resample=44100:0:1 -ao pcm -aofile $HOME/mp3/RADIO/`date +%y-%h-%d-%R`.wav $1

then I got lazy with iTunes & my iPod... If I have to go back to that, fine. It's not the end of the world.

Re:Seven dollars a month?!

[sparks]

No, not seven dollars a month. Seven dollars for the whole of the season of podcasts. The last season was twelve episodes; they're not committing to a number for this season but are guaranteeing at least four. I'm expecting twelve again in practice.

Also, it's not a recurring charge but a one-off.