Archive for the 'Making Money with Podcasts' Category

Podcasting pioneer and author Michael W. Geoghegan has a great post today on his site that looks at making money with podcasts.

Geoghegan has written several books on podcasting, has been involved since the early days of podcasting, he helped Disney create their podcast and has run a podcasting network. And while many podcasters have been waiting for the podcast dollars to roll in, Geoghegan has been cutting deals with American Airlines and others.

He thinks it’s time for podcasters that want to make money with their podcasts to start treating their podcast as a business:

People often ask how we consistently sell out our inventory on GrapeRadio.

Easy, we have a kick-ass media kit, a proven track record, a book of business with many repeat advertisers and four entrepreneurs as owners - folks who aren’t scared to ask for the deal. While the amounts aren’t huge, $1,300 per weekly episode, we can command those prices because we have nailed our niche.

A comparative CPM deal would have to be close to net $100 to make sense. No ad network has ever offered us anything close to that. We have also built a great business in white label production, i.e. non-GrapeRadio branded content specific to individual wineries for their sites.

We decided from day one not to do wine reviews so as to avoid any editorial conflicts. Our figures are not awe inspiring but they buy nice equipment, pay for the trips to Napa and leave plenty leftover for shareholder distributions. Given that we all run other businesses full time, it has worked out quite nicely.

The whole article is a must-read, if you’re interested in commercial podcasting.

Wizzard Software, the parent company of Liberated Syndication and several podcast hosting services, announced today that revenues for the fourth quarter of 2007 were $1,540,992, a 108% increase over revenues of $739,551 in the fourth quarter of 2006.

For the full year of 2007, the Company recorded revenues of $5,163,491, a 75% increase of $2,195,967 from revenues of $2,943,578 in 2006. Wizzard posted a gross profit of $1,562,703, a 47% increase versus a gross profit of $1,064,115 in the full year 2006.

The company noted several podcasting-related accomplishments in its announcement:

• Acquisition of Podcast Company Liberated Syndication (Libsyn) 3/19/07
• Completed Raise of $7,500,000 for its Podcasting Business 7/9/07
• Adds Nielsen//NetRatings’ Site Census to Advertising System 9/12/07
• Announces Largest Ever Industry Ad Campaign 11/14/07
• Ends Year with Approximately 10,000 Podcast Publishers 12/31/07
• 1 Billion Download Requests in 2007 12/31/07

In 2007, Wizzard Media surpassed download request forecasts with one billion podcast download requests achieved, surpassing the 450 million download requests for 2006.

“Podcasting is becoming a necessary audience expansion tool for content publishers and brand advertisers seeking cost effective, high return outlets to capture the migration of audiences from traditional media outlets to the internet,” says Chris Spencer, Wizzard CEO. “We are seeing an increase in advertiser understanding of the high quality, subscription and episodic benefits of podcasting versus other internet video offerings. We believe that our ambitious undertaking of targeting similar audiences through interesting, engaging podcast micro-communities is a very compelling advertising opportunity and we expect advertising revenues to grow substantially in 2008.”

We’ve noted before that bad advertising is holding back the development of Internet television.

Advertisers aren’t sure where to advertise on the Internet, how to advertise in new media or how to measure their success, and they’re spending their money on old media as a result, even though they know traditional advertising is becoming less effective.

Incredibly, for every $1 advertisers spend on ads in Internet video, they spend $100 on TV ads.

This is despite the facts that:

• Most people get their news from the Internet.
• Kids aren’t watching TV like they used to.
• While TV is declining, Internet TV is set to grow 42% this year.
• Television networks are failing to deliver the audiences they have promised, because people are watching Internet videos.

If It Keeps On Rainin’, The Levee’s Going To Break

Advertisers know that they need to move their money into new media, but they are clueless about how to do it:

Spending on online video ads represents less than 4 percent of all Internet advertising and just 1 percent of the amount spent on TV, according to eMarketer. But growth is expected — with the research firm forecasting U.S. spending more than tripling to $4.3 billion in 2011 — especially as more viewers embrace full-length TV episodes and other video online.

The challenge is finding the right formula — in the creative approach, the format or the frequency with which the ads appear — so visitors notice the pitches without getting so annoyed that they never come back.

“Users love free content and advertisers love to fill up every minute and pixel with the messaging, and publishers do have to find that balance,” said Geoffrey Coco, an advertising executive with Microsoft, which has a video news partnership with The Associated Press. “There’s been a lot of innovation but I don’t think we’ve settled down yet.”

There’s going to be a flood of money coming into new media very soon, but nobody’s sure what path it will follow.

Where do you think it’s going to go?

If you ever doubted that there was a future in podcasting, then doubt no more.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Douglas Sarine (L) and Kent Nichols (R), the creators of the hit video podcast Ask a Ninja, are making the jump to the big screen. The two are writing an adaptation of the 1978 cult monster movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, which Nichols is set to direct:

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! is the masterwork of a generation,” Nichols said. “We can only aspire to recapture that magic.”

No changes to the original plot have been revealed, but it still is expected to revolve around killer tomatoes.

Nichols and Sarine’s satirical “Ninja” shorts have garnered more than 80 million Web views and won best series at the 2006 YouTube Video Awards. Their “Ninja” commentator has appeared on National Public Radio and VH1’s “Best Week Ever.”

The original “Tomatoes” spawned the Fox Kids Network’s “ATV” cartoon series and the feature sequel “Return of the Killer Tomatoes,” which helped launch George Clooney’s career.

Nichols and Sarine are repped by UTA and John Elliott of Mosaic Media Group.

You can find out more about Sarine and Nichols in our interview with them.

The Association for Downloadable Media (ADM), an organization focused on creating advertising standards podcasts and Internet media, announced today the creation of a special advertising agency liaison to the organization, along with the confirmation of a fourteen-member Ad Council, made up of media professionals from leading interactive advertising agencies.

The council will act as a sounding board for the ADM committees, which are creating downloadable media advertising standards and guidelines. David Herscott, President of San Diego-based interactive agency MEA Digital, has been appointed the liaison between the Ad Council of media strategists and the ADM committee chairs.

The Association for Downloadable Media will be releasing initial ad unit standards and audience measurement guidelines for public consideration at the ADM Forum at ad:tech San Francisco April 16th from 9:00 am - 11:45 am at Moscone Center.

“People have been talking for years about the need for podcasting ad standards,” said ADM Chairman Chris MacDonald. “We’re taking the first big leap on standards-setting and are working proactively to verify that the ad formats and audience measurement processes we set will work for both the buyer and seller.” (more…)

An Apple patent reveals that the company is working on a podcast aggregator that would dynamically collect the news that you are interested in and deliver a personalized news podcast, according to a report at AppleInsider.

In other words - Apple wants to be your news and information station.

The system would allow you to:

• Subscribe to and personalize a podcast with software like iTunes;
• Select news segments selected from a variety of categories; and
• Automatically download the personalized podcast to your Apple TV, iPod or iPhone.

The custom news show could consist of a 5 minute segment from CNN on the day’s national news, a 5 minute segment from a local news station, and a 10 minute segment on sports highlights from ESPN.

In addition to offering mainstream content, the iNews service may let you integrate other podcast content:

“Upon selection of the custom button, a user can be assisted with another dialog screen to create a category of content, namely, media content, that is to be included within the custom podcast.

For example, the user may request to receive sports highlights from the weekend during the NFL season regarding specific teams or teams in the Eastern division. As another example, the user may desire to receive statistics regarding games played during the past week in the NFL.”

Once you select the playlist of content that you’re interested in, Apple’s servers would request the latest podcast content from content creators, stitch the segments together and then deliver the personalized podcast to iTunes or other podcast software. As part of this process, Apple could insert targeted advertising dynamically.

Google announced today that its AdSense for Video program is now open to publishers. Previously, the AdSense program has focused on serving (usually) contextually relevant text-only ads.

Google’s video pilot program originally was going to serve up video-in-video advertising. However, as it has evolved, the video part has been replaced by targeted, contextually-relevant CPM banners and CPC text overlays. Some web publishers see these ads as an alternative to the pre-roll and post-roll advertising clips that have become the industry’s default standard advertising format.

AdSense for video is now available to publishers who, at a minimum, serve one million video streams each month and are based in the U.S. with English language sites. Google has a site that explains their video ad options at http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/

If you’re trying to make money with new media, IDC has some good news for you.

U.S. Internet advertising is growing like mad - up by 25% in 2007 to over 25 billion dollars. And the money’s not all going to Google.
Research Highlights: 

• As people spend more time on the Internet, companies are moving their advertising dollars from traditional media to online media.
• Total U.S. Internet ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07) grew nearly 28% over the same quarter in 2006 to $7.3 billion.
• Google’s net U.S. market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. The market leader’s net U.S. Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7% last quarter compared to 3Q07.

“If a merger between Microsoft’s new media business and Yahoo! would come to pass, the combined entity would have a net U.S. advertising market share of about 17% based on our 4Q07 data,” says IDC’s Karsten Weide. “It would not quite bring Microsoft-Yahoo! to where Google is in online advertising in the U. S., but it would give them a much better fighting chance than if they went it alone.”

Mark Linder, the creator of the Bedtime Stories My Kids Love podcast, has reached an agreement with the newly formed PodShow Press to publish in both audio and print form his first book of bedtime stories, The Adventures of the Man in the Can.

The new work is a collection of stories about a character named The Man in the Can and comes from the Bedtime Stories My Kids Love podcast.

“The Man in the Can is one of Bedtime Stories My Kids Love most beloved characters,” says Linder. “The tiny man always seems to find himself in impossible situations and somehow, through his ingenuity, steadfastness and the help of his animal and bird friends, always seems to find a way to persevere.”

The printed version of the book is scheduled for release later this year. The first audio book chapter of the series is available now for listening.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the world of new media about the future of podcasting - people wondering what the current state of podcasting is and where it’s going.

eMarketer forecasts that the audience for podcast consumption will double in the next two years, but even that relatively rosy forecast is disappointing to some.

We recently talked to Chris Spencer, CEO of podcasting hosting mega-network Wizzard Media, to get his perspective on podcasting and its future.

In the last year, Wizzard has acquired podcast hosting services Switchpod, Libsyn, and Blast Podcast. Wizzard made headlines in January when it announced that it had delivered over one billion podcast downloads in 2007. Earlier this week, Wizzard announced that it was now trading on the American Stock Exchange (”AMEX”) under the ticker symbol “WZE.”

In our interview, Chris shared his thoughts on what a billion podcast downloads per year means, what he expects that number to be in 2008, and his predictions on what will happen with podcast advertising.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Tell me about this whole billion downloads number. What does that mean for you in particular, and for downloadable media industry in general?

Chris Spencer: It’s a big number, isn’t it?

For us in particular, it means our servers are running well. Let’s face it: some people wonder whether this accomplishment gets credited to Wizzard, or to our content creators. We feel strongly that it’s 95% our content creators - they create the quality content, and they go out and market their show, and grow their audience. We get 5% credit for being proficient and productive enough to offer a stable inexpensive hosting solution, and that takes a lot of work.

But it comes down to the podcast producers. It’s a big accomplishment for the podcasters we host. It’s a big enough milestone for them and for us, and we publicized it so much.

In reality, what we’re trying to do is raise awareness for podcasting, specifically with the advertisers and the sponsors. It’s a number that’s going to attract a lot of the bigger brands that didn’t realize how big the potential here is. If there’s going to be big audience for podcasts, then that’s going to draw advertisers. That’s why we publicize it, not just for us, but for the whole industry.

Let’s look at the whole podcast industry: Right now, the industry is too small to worry if it’s us, or PodShow, or Podomatic. Right now it’s all about getting the advertisers and sponsors to know more about and be more interested in podcasting. Period.

I could talk about this for hours: it comes down to trying to demonstrate that this is a viable alternative to reach target audiences. More importantly, it is a product that people are consuming, and they’re loving it. (more…)