The British Podcast Awards have been totally different this yr. Held in a south London park, they’d a boutique competition really feel, with wristbands and tokens for drinks, an open-sided tent for the precise awards, and other people lounging on blankets in entrance of the stage. There have been additionally sponsor areas – these small, picket-fenced areas the place invitees may drink and blend with model bigwigs. Awards are costly to stage, and to offer any type of knowledgeable sheen, cash is required. In 2017, the BPA sponsors included Radioplayer and Whistledown, an unbiased audio creator. In 2021, the BPA was “powered by Amazon Music”. Spotify, Stitcher, Audible, Acast, World, BBC Sounds, Podfollow and Sony Music additionally dipped into their sponsorship pockets. Clearly, podcasting has gone up on the earth.
Over the previous 18 months, podcasting has hit the company large time. Apple, lengthy essentially the most recognisable title in podcasting, its iTunes chart being the general public measure of any present’s success, is making an attempt, clumsily, to maneuver from being a impartial platform that hosts exhibits into one which makes cash from podcasting (by, for instance, charging creators for highlighted spots).
Extra glamorously, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher and Sony Music have all been investing critical cash, both by shopping for up large names, or by investing in creators. Again in Might 2020, Spotify struck the primary large deal: $100m for Joe Rogan – the most important podcaster on the earth – which introduced him solely on to its roster; since then, it has made multimillion-dollar agreements with the Obamas, the Sussexes and Kim Kardashian West, whose podcasting abilities are far much less established.
Amazon Music not too long ago paid a reputed $80m for SmartLess, a chatshow hosted by three well-known Hollywood/TV stars (Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes) which pulls in celeb interviewees like Gwyneth Paltrow and Ryan Reynolds; it has additionally purchased Wondery, the US true crime podcast big. Stitcher snapped up the vastly well-liked WTF with Marc Maron, and, in April this yr, purchased Roman Mars’s Radiotopia podcast group, which incorporates indie podcast fave, 99% Invisible. In June, Sony acquired Somethin’ Else, the UK unbiased audio powerhouse that makes David Tennant’s interview present. Need extra? In July, Netflix appointed its first head of podcasts.
Podcasting, which has been round for about 15 years, is getting its second within the fiscal solar. We’ve all heard the argument for large cash: if money goes in on the prime of a tradition, it will definitely swirls down and advantages the smaller folks. There’s some proof of this. Stitcher introduced in indie audio drama author Lauren Shippen to write down Marvels, an adaptation of the favored comedian. And solely the stony hearted would resent Roman Mars making some dosh – he’s been a podcast champion for years.
Nonetheless, Large Cash does tend to put money into names it understands (celebrities), or to take smaller concepts, brush them up (add celebrities) and make them business. In doing so, it may well stomp on cultural ecosystems and artistic assist networks which have been constructed up over years. Cash skews consideration, brings in PR and advertising and marketing groups towards which smaller exhibits can’t compete. And cash can even simply be a bit crass: one beginner podcast drama author, working for a giant firm, boasted to different writers that they have been the primary individual ever to have written an audio drama that had been purchased by Hollywood to be able to make a movie model. Maybe the author had by no means heard of The Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy (1978, Radio 4)?
On this big-pockets, big-boots period, when all the eye goes to celeb exhibits, or these with a big advertising and marketing spend, how can lo-fi podcasts survive? How can unbiased podcasts proceed to be funded, and be observed, increase their viewers and group? How do they keep inventive?
“Financially, we survive on a mixture of grants and advertisements and crowdfunding,” says Amy Westervelt, whose US firm, Vital Frequency, makes podcasts concerning the local weather emergency, together with Drilled, which makes use of a true-crime strategy to research company environmental delinquencies. Westervelt additionally makes cash by making podcasts for manufacturers and different firms: this hasn’t at all times been straightforward, partly as a result of, she says, “I’m sadly not excellent at doing issues only for cash”, but additionally as a result of generally her commissioners haven’t totally understood what is required to make investigative podcasts. She has needed to struggle for a factchecker, and has been requested to fudge the reality to extend drama. (She thinks that is partly as a result of podcasts can nonetheless be considered light-weight puffery versus, say, an investigation carried out by a critical newspaper: which might go some solution to clarify the New York Instances’ Caliphate debacle.) Alternatively, some firms have launched into making their very own investigative present solely to grasp that they don’t have the experience, and have subcontracted Vital Frequency. “I’ve the contacts they want,” she says. “I do know the best journalists to do the job.”
Investigative journalism is a pricey, time-consuming enterprise and it may be exhausting for unbiased journalists to tug within the cash required. Maeve McClenaghan, who makes the wonderful UK investigative podcast The Tip Off, landed some investor cash for collection two and three, in addition to funding via her employer the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. However when that cash circulate ended, she needed to produce the fourth collection on a shoestring. She turned again to promoting to get some monetary assist – however discovered that the market had modified. For her first collection, she had been provided a number of good sponsorship choices however, 4 years later, these choices have been far fewer.
“Acast informed me that, with the rise of day by day information podcasts from newspapers and magazines, advertisers who need that critical information angle are going to go for them, relatively than a smaller present like The Tip Off,” she says.
Westervelt and McClenaghan each acknowledge that they may strategy bigger podcast manufacturing firms for funding. However with investigative exhibits, you need to have carried out numerous unpaid growth earlier than you carry it to every other podcast firm, in any other case there is no such thing as a purpose for them to not steal the concept and make it themselves.
“It’s a must to be sure you’re a significant element,” says McClenaghan. “Why would they bring about me in to make the present, except I’ve carried out a lot work it may well solely be me?”
And, even when you get the deal, you then need to handle expectations (many attention-grabbing investigations fizzle out) and navigate mental property rights. It’s numerous work.
Helen Zaltzman, doyenne of indie podcasts, created the immensely profitable Reply Me This! in 2007, with Olly Mann (they ended it not too long ago, after the four-hundredth present). As a podcaster because the time the medium emerged, she is aware of that life has received tougher for indie show-makers, largely as a result of there are such a lot of extra podcasts on the market.
“No platform or investor has solved the issue of discoverability,” she factors out. “Your podcast may very well be nice, however how are you going to get folks to listen to it?”
How can any small present make a splash in a world the place the information headlines go to podcasts made by ex-presidents and princes? There are podcast newsletters, and evaluations, however most audio columns – like mine – solely come out as soon as per week.
No marvel unbiased podcasters stick collectively. Podcasting, as a younger artwork kind, has a supportive group, and audio drama is an space the place this notably thrives. Ella Watts, a podcast producer for the BBC, who likens the ecosystem round audio drama to that round comics, describes the indie audio fiction scene as very shut, with creators “exchanging abilities, like serving to one another edit scripts, or appearing in one another’s exhibits”.
“It’s a bizarre little area of interest that exists exterior the mainstream largely,” she says. “There’s numerous queerness and racial variety within the characters within the tales, with out making that the precise story.”
This side may be altering: a number of folks pointed me to dramas made by QCode, a brand new, well-funded podcast firm shaped by ex-Hollywood insiders. QCode, its critics recommend, takes the ideas of indie drama – dystopia, horror, sci-fi, variety – after which straightens them out, making queer relationships straight, and (you guessed it) using large Hollywood celebrities as actors, comparable to Richard Madden and Demi Moore.
In comics, Marvel and DC blockbuster movies exist alongside and feed out and in of the unique magazines and books. And this has began to occur in podcast world: not solely was Marvels written by Shippen, the creator of The Shiny Periods, however Wolverine: The Lengthy Night time – the profitable scripted podcast that got here out in 2018 – used Love + Radio producer Brendan Baker as director. (As an apart: Spotify has signed an unique take care of DC: its new Batman collection is because of come out this yr, and will probably be written by David S Goyer, a longtime screenwriter.)
The fear is that different, smaller, odder tales, which may be simply as attention-grabbing, gained’t get funded, and all of us miss out. Podcasts, for a few years, have been about group and concepts. In case you had a terrific idea, whether or not for an interview present, a drama or an investigation, then a podcast was a low-stakes approach of constructing it actual. The podcasting group was as soon as so small that when Welcome to Night time Vale co-creator Jeffrey Cranor got here to London, he met up with Zaltzman, just because they each made podcasts. As of late, such “you do the identical odd factor I do” insta-friendships appear much less seemingly.
To be honest, the manufacturers know that its group is a part of podcasting’s attraction. Craig Strachan, head of podcasts for Europe, Australia and New Zealand at Amazon Music, emails to say that considered one of his “favorite facets about podcasting” is “how grassroots and open it nonetheless is, in contrast with different media”.
“We will all agree that almost all good podcasts should not produced in isolation,” he says, “and there are lots of world, native, and genre-specific podcasting communities that an unbiased podcaster can be a part of to hone their craft and develop their viewers. As we noticed with the British Podcast Awards, most of the winners and nominees… began out as independents themselves, and have been facilitated by nice podcasting friends. Being an energetic member of this group is essential.”
He additionally factors out that many podcasts exist only for “podcast’s sake” and that it will change. “Individuals are in search of a podcast with a goal,” he says, “whether or not that’s to entertain, educate or enlighten. I’d advise any podcaster-to-be to essentially take into consideration what they need to do with their podcast.”
It feels a little bit like gentrification: low cost, numerous, barely grotty areas of a metropolis which have their very own type and rhythm and tradition are found by these with cash and the character modifications. Sure, these small native cafes may nonetheless exist for some time, but when one other, greater premises is taken over by a model that seems native, however is definitely Pret, then newcomers gained’t know – “I simply discovered this excellent spot!” – and can spend their cash there.
Discoverability, expertise, group and, sure, cash are all what unbiased podcasts have at all times needed to tackle. It’s simply that the stakes have gotten larger.
“I’ve at all times had the idea,” says Westervelt, “that when you make high quality stuff, it’s going to discover an viewers. However,” she admits, “it does fear me.”
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