Some podcast hosts receive fame, connections and juicy sponsorships. While others struggle to make money with niche audiences.
🔍 Problem
Podcasts with small audiences are hard to monetize.
🏁 Players
Podcast Membership Platforms
Premium Podcast Networks
Podcasts (with Memberships)
🔮 Predictions
- Podcast memberships will become the go-to model for niche shows.
- Hosts will bundle live show tickets, content, swag and other benefits into memberships.
- The Luminary (Netflix-style) model will suffer unless creators can customize memberships. The opportunity cost of ‘show bundles’ is too high.
- Podcasters will form ads-for-equity deals.
- Superstar podcasters will continue using ads.
☁️ Opportunities
- Create a podcast that 1,000 people will love.
- Create a paid community alongside your podcast.
- Leverage your influence for equity instead of sponsorships.
- Build a value ladder around your podcast.
😠 Haters
“This will never work.”
It’s already working. 😄
“Tim Ferriss tried this and it didn’t work.”
Tim didn’t make his content exclusive. He offered benefits (such as Q&A) alongside free content. The content ‘hard choke’ seems to be more effective than the ‘soft choke.’
🔗 Links
- How to Get Joe Rogan As Your Business Partner — Noah Kagan
- Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Put Ads on Your Podcast — Aidan Hornsby
- First signs of a subscription model for podcasts — WNIP
- Open or closed: Who will control the paid-podcast experience, podcasters or tech companies? — Caroline Crampton
- Tim Ferriss Experiment Announcement — Tim Ferriss
- Why I’m Stopping the Fan-Supported Podcast Experiment — Tim Ferriss
- 1,000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly
- Podcasts Experiment With Paid Subscriptions — Steven Perlberg
- The future of the podcast business isn’t advertising or subscriptions. It’s both. — Eric Scott Johnson