Gervais For Pays
5
(REVISED: Wednesday, February 22, 12:05 AM. I initially had a much stronger indictment of Audible here, but it was pointed out to me that my technical understanding of Audible’s distribution model was completely incorrect. For those who read my earlier mistake, my sincere apologies.)
I heard the news yesterday, but I was skeptical about it until I saw confirmation outside Audible’s site: the world’s #1 podcast, The Ricky Gervais Show, is being moved over to Audible on a pay model of $1.95 per show. 1
For Gervais, of course, this seems like a great short-term move. His podcast’s 12-week run averaged out to 250,000 an episode. If 20% of his audience follows him, he’s pulling $50K to $100K per week. That’s a pretty decent return for a half hour of two guys making fun of a third guy. Of course there’s got to be other staff involved, and a chain of middlemen taking their cuts, but at the end of the day Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington have got to be smiling.2
And frankly, although it pains me to say this, they probably could not have done as well giving their show away for free. Not in the short run, anyway. In theory a quarter-million listeners should mean incredible ad money, but in practice the infrastructure just isn’t there yet for podcasting. They’d be spending more time trying to set up deals than they spent in the studio, and I can’t blame them at all for signing onto an easy pre-built solution. The payment barrier and the distribution barrier are going to knock their audience down to a fraction, but I have the impression from listening that they’re doing it for a lark anyway. They probably don’t care about long term growth limits; they’ll keep doing it until there’s a better opportunity or until it’s not fun anymore, and then they’ll stop. Cash in the meantime? Good for them.
What does it mean for podcasting as a whole? Very little. Because once they move over to Audible, they’re going to be identified more as an “Audible show” rather than a podcast. For Audible that branding is sort of a mixed blessing: they’d love to be synonymous with podcasting, but even with an RSS-based distribution model they’ve still got their site as a highly opaque gateway between the content and the listener. That’s completely unavoidable. Somebody’s got to take the credit cards, and everyone who approaches that gateway is going to look at the cost and the hassle and make a value judgment for themselves whether the ride is worth it.
For Gervais, even if a fairly small percentage of the people say yes, he wins. Because a few percent of 250,000 is still a lot, and because his content has created a genuine pop culture wave. You and me? I don’t think we can afford to cut our audiences by 90%.
So what Gervais does doesn’t matter to the rest of us, I believe. If you have a successful podcast and you think you can follow him down that path, and maintain long-term audience and/or revenue growth, you’re probably making a mistake. You’re placing technical and monetary barriers between yourself and your audience; and by divorcing yourself from the common one-click path to podcasting, just as audiences are beginning to grok that “Subscribe” button, you’re removing yourself from the surface of the excitement bubble that’s still building.
All this is true for Gervais too, of course. Two years from now, if his show’s still going at all, you won’t know about it unless you’re one of his hardcore fans. The only reason I don’t call this a mistake is because I doubt he cares. He’s got The Office, and Pilkington will probably land a million-dollar book deal for his diary.
Hi, Stephen.
As you requested, here I am. And no, that’s not correct. All recurrent content on audible.com - including the Ricky Gervais show - is available via any standard RSS client. iTunes, Juice, Skookum Subscriber, whatever.
Additionally, any podcast managed and delivered using AudibleWordcast behaves the same way.
You may not have found “concrete information” on the subject because we didn’t think there was a reason elaborate on the word “podcasting”. When we say podcasting, we mean it in its truest sense - delivered via standards-based podcatching clients. There’s no wordsmithing or embellishment going on.
I wish individual podcasters would take the time to engage Audible (and me) in conversation on the topic of podcasting and not make assumptions - we’re very open to talking about what we’re doing here and how we can help podcasters of all sizes monetize their content, whether it be for a fee or via advertising.
Regards,
-jf.
John Federico
Sr. Director of Business Development, Podcasting
Audible, Inc.
Comment by John Federico — February 21, 2006 @ 5:08 pm
John –
How about reaching out to podcasters in a more obvious way on your web site? If I hadn’t heard the criticisms about Audible in various forums, I wouldn’t have known the company provides services to podcasters at all.
Comment by Matthew Wayne Selznick — February 21, 2006 @ 5:38 pm
The distribution method is RSS but if I’m not mistaken (and the information on the website is not very detailed about the technical details of what you offer?) the file is proprietary format or a DRM-version of an existing format?
You need to install software such as iTunes or your own software - and in my case I have an iRiver H340 and cannot listen using that at all for Audible content? Only certain types of player can play Audible content? I don’t see Archos or Sony MP3 devices in your list either, actually.
The Ricky gervais show won’t be plain MP3 will it?
Not that I want to listen as said here - “That’s a pretty decent return for a half hour of two guys making fun of a third guy” - that’s so, so true.
But 2 million people must be autoamtically right, eh?
Comment by tim — February 22, 2006 @ 11:48 pm
Gervais’ sense of humor is rather British. Likely as not some will pony up a few quid to listen.
It’s clear he and his mates are keen to cash in short term, and not interested in building and/or maintaining a fan base long-term. The pay-per-play route strikes me as an Old Media tactic. Some of the best programming coming from Old Media is worth the price. Deadwood, for example, if you don’t already subscribe to HBO. But Gervais???
If I had to guess - and I’m going to anyway - it won’t be 20 percent of his listeners making the jump, but less than ten percent. Still more than they’d make monetizing through advertising at this point, but I wonder if Ricky isn’t burning off the goodwill of a good bit of his fanbase doing this.
IOW, if the purpose of his podcast is subconciously perceived as akin to other Old Media podcasts - another advertising/branding avenue for the other stuff they actually DO sell, which, in the case of Ricky Gervais, is television and publishing projects featuring Ricky Gervais - there could well be more people framing the cost-benefit question in a colder and more calculating manner than Gervaise and Audible would like to see, and more people feeling burnt (First you hook us then you want me to pay??? What if I don’t want to pay? What if there’s already enough good free stuff to fill my iPod several times over???)
Others posting here are right I think to observe that Gervais’ action doesn’t really affect the tens of thousands of independent podcasters. The folks who ARE watching this very carefully are the wary Old Media giants, always looking for another way to make their Kerkorians and Buffets happy.
Comment by Michael Heister — February 24, 2006 @ 9:21 am
Audible publishs podcast content using proprietary formats which I believe is a big mistake. Yes, I can listen via Windows Media Player if I install a plugin. But I can’t listen on my iRiver H320 no matter what I do. And I spend most of my time listening to podcasts in airports, on trains and while driving long distances in the car. You lose 25 to 30% of the audience right off the bat due to hardware issues. Then you cut out all the younger people who don’t have credit cards and lose another 20%. So you’re down to about half the original audience. It’s still good money, but you’re not getting heard nearly as much.
I’m not sure what DRM Audible will place on the content, but if they do you can chop off another 25% of the audience. In the end it comes down to either getting heard by the widest audience possible or making some money off your audience.
IMHO, they should stick with MP3 and add a couple of sponsors. Then they would be heard and they would make good money.
Comment by Rob S — February 27, 2006 @ 4:20 pm