OT: Felger and Murray Cutoff While Complaining About Layoffs at 98.5

[Ian]

The monetization decision for podcasts is interesting. The one that I'm involved with has had huge success without ads, rising to #1 globally in its category. The perpetual question we chew on is about how much of that success is due to no ads? If it had less success, and that drove a need to monetize it, and we changed to an advertising model, would that create a death spiral because ads are a disincentive to listen? Or would that stabilize the finances? We can study others, but not really know until we try the experiment (which hopefully we'll not have to do).

The guys have been doing ours for 13 years and we haven't figured that whole thing out and make zero doing it. That's not my world, and I'm assuming there is a way to make it viable but so far, I have no idea what that would be. But that's awesome you've had success growing yours. Any tips, advice, etc. are definitely appreciated.

 

[BTTA]

The guys have been doing ours for 13 years and we haven't figured that whole thing out and make zero doing it. That's not my world, and I'm assuming there is a way to make it viable but so far, I have no idea what that would be. But that's awesome you've had success growing yours. Any tips, advice, etc. are definitely appreciated.

Honestly, I think it's nothing more than the host being very good at it, and the topic being incredibly relevant to a lot of people (globally, English speaking). He decided to not do ads right from the start, got big and brought in a handful of advisors (inc. me). We've revisited that decision about ads a few times and affirmed it every time, mostly just because it is funded through other means and nobody wants to mess with the continuing success. So I'm not sure there's anything there for anyone else to learn from. My curiosity is mostly about what we will do if the funding goes away and we can't replace it, and/or the podcast growth slows (in other words, it becomes like most podcasts).

 

[bobbutts]

YouTube TV has been more reliable than Comcast/Xfinity at 1/3 the cost, and with more channels. Google is so vertically integrated, and has such a dominant market share, that they can put out a quality product like that without squeezing the consumer (yet).

I really like youtube tv but cost is not one of the reasons. It's $65 per month and require an internet connection. My savings from switching to fiber and yttv vs. Comcast for a similar channel lineup is like 10%. Both services are superior to the ones they replaced but it's still $135/month and goes up I think $15 after a year for the fiber.