Another method used to generate revenue is the creation of a premium feed, where each subscriber has to pay a certain amount to have access to your show. Think of this as pay-per-view for podcasting. The way this works best is for you to have a free feed that you use to create a large audience base and then you either transition over to a premium feed completely or create a second feed that is the premium feed. In February of 2006, Ricky Gervais announced that he would be switching over to a premium feed hosted through Audible.com, which allows the podcaster to create a premium feed using a service called Wordcast Pro (see Figure 18.11). We talked with John Federico from Audible.com about its services. Figure 18.11. Wordcast Pro from Audible.com.![]()
The pricing for Audible's Wordcast Pro starts with a one-time activation fee of $50. Then there is a $0.02-per-download cost, and you also have a 20% transaction fee for paid content. So if you offered your podcast at $0.10 per show, Audible would get $0.02 for the transaction fee and $0.02 for the download, leaving you with $0.06, or $60 per 1,000. If your podcast has a large and very loyal following, maybe you could get $0.50 per show. In this case, Audible would get $0.12 and you would get $0.38, or $380 per 1,000 downloads net. (This is roughly what Ricky Gervais is charging if you get the whole series. On a per-show basis, he is asking for $1.95.) For podcasters looking to sell their shows on a premium basis (where the subscriber pays to play) Audible offers the best overall solution. However, for most indie podcasters looking for a service to add advertising (aggregate an audience and sell the media value), Audible may not make much sense. Its download cost is $0.02 per download or a $20 CPM. If you received $40 for the CPM, half would go to Audible. And if you used its ad-insertion system, another $3.33 per thousand would also go to Audible. You would need to get at least a CPM of $90 from an advertiser to make Audible an equal value to many of the advertising networks mentioned previously in this chapter. However, if you have a niche show and you find that you can get a CPM of over $100, then Audible is a great solution. But if you are in the long tail of podcasting, you will find it very difficult to get a CPM above $50. Another interesting service from Audible is the ability to provide a preapproved list of subscribers. Let's say you have a membership program, where for some amount per year your members get access to your site and private members-only content, and now you want to add access to your members-only podcast. Rather than Audible forcing your members to go through another transaction to access your podcast, you can send in a list of email addresses to Audible and have those members preapproved to subscribe to that podcast. You can have a private podcast only available to the members you supply to Audible. This could be used by a corporation that wants to make training podcasts available to an external sales/rep force, as an example. Note Audible pricing comes from its website as of March 2006. Be sure to check http://wordcast.audible.com for its current pricing as this may have changed. |