Subscription podcasting comes of age

🎙️ Podcast Subscriptions

The biggest creator news of the week came from the Apple Event yesterday where Apple announced paid podcast subscriptions.

Creators on the Apple Podcasters Program will get a single show page for both free listeners and paid subscribers.

And we will be able to create a channel - a single branded destination for multiple podcasts. Apple states:

You can offer shows with paid subscriptions, or fans can listen to free shows that come with additional benefits when they subscribe

These additional benefits can be:

• Ad-free listening. Let subscribers focus on the story

• Early access. Offer subscribers new episodes before everyone else

• Archive access. Unlock access to all the past episodes

Creators will receive 70% of the subscription price which increases to 85% after one year. Any ad revenue stays at 100% for the creator.

A monthly price is required for subscriptions, an annual price is optional.

What's interesting, with the recent trend of video podcasts, is that Apple recommends audio over video, stating:

While we accept both audio and video file types, long-form audio is significantly more popular than video. 

Apple breaks down this new paradigm into three episode types:

1. Full: The complete content of your show. 

2. Bonus: Extra content for your show, available to anyone or only to paid subscribers.

3. Trailer: A short, promotional piece of content that represents a preview of your current show.

The third is the most interesting to me. Short clips were mentioned by Sam & Shaan in this recent episode of the My First Million podcast as a strategy they are using to scale their downloads to a goal of 100K a month.

Apple has a dedicated page on how to make a great podcast trailer to 'pique interest by introducing the themes of your show and sample interviews'. They mention three options:

1. Coming soon trailer - to tease a brand-new show or new season before it launches

2. Show trailer - 'your podcast’s highlight reel, featuring your most exciting content, sound bites, and quotes' to be used on your site, social channels and in cross-promotions

3. Teaser trailer - played at the end of your show to promote the next episode.

The company also has a whole marketing and promotions section on how to package your podcast. It's impressive.

So how does this announcement stack up vs an existing platform such as Patreon?

Well, first up, creators will not receive any specific info about their subscribers and will have no direct connection with our listeners:

Ashley Carman @ashleyrcarman

also confirmed that podcasters will receive no specific info about their subscribers, like emails, apart from whatever analytics apple provides, like where your show is most popular.

Then there is an annual fee of $20 to be included in Apple's program whereas with Patreon you simply earn together:

James Parkinson @JamesRParkinson

@Jonathanjk That's fine. These subscriptions aren't for everyone. But I see Patreon as supporting creators, in a general sense. Apple's model is, you're paying directly for the content itself, like you would a magazine.

As such, you're essentially selling content, rather than a subscription you own.

I'd rather sell subscriptions like I did on Substack.

However there will be some exodus, with Jason Calacanis having already announced he's leaving his Patreon page and will be selling subscriptions through Apple Podcasts, something he asked about 15 years ago!

I'm considering starting a new podcast, but will wait to assess all options, in particular when Spotify launches paid subs on Anchor.

🪙 Lord of the Coins 

Since last week's newsletter on why I'm not buying Bitclout, an old school friend (that's an old friend from school, not an old-school friend) who has never bought crypto before, hit me up saying he's just bought Dogecoin and a bunch of other random sh*t coins.

I think the crypto top (for now) may be in folks.

I've also continued thinking some more about creator coins...

I listened to an interesting conversation on the Bitclout Podcast between the host and a marketer / poker player about how coin holders who make the best decisions for their community will win out long term (i.e. achieve a higher market cap).

But one of my all-time favourite quotes from a fellow Brit and influential economist is, "in the long run we are all dead".

Which got me thinking: what happens to your coin when you actually are dead or, less morbidly, when you want to stop rocking the influencer game?

Richard Patey @RichardPatey

Can a creator who has created a coin on a platform such as @rally_io close their account and destroy the coin?! Or once created, the coins live on for all time and just lose value if the creator stops offering benefits? Also can you sell a creator coin account? Cc @KevinChou

No-one has yet answered. Hit reply if you know.

Cheers!

Richard

ps I know I've been breaking my rules. First of all, I said there would be no web archive, and now I've started using emojis. Please forgive me, I just want you to open my emails (The Hustle uses them who crush open-rates)