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Businesses Music

Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy (variety.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
If it's still too early to declare platform-exclusive podcast deals dead as we move into 2023, it's becoming ever clearer that this business model is likely not long for this world. From a report: Spotify in particular has spent the past few years building up its arsenal of exclusive podcast content, shelling out more than $1 billion to acquire studios, lock down popular shows and secure marquee names. Those include podcasting behemoth Joe Rogan, former Presidential couple the Obamas (through their Higher Ground media company) and even the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. But the tide is turning as we enter what many observers project to be a difficult year for the podcasting industry. As in the streaming video space, the major audio players are reportedly reining in their spending amid economic pressures, bringing the booming market of the last several years toward a close.

[...] For one thing, as the digital ad market continues to sag in the months ahead, competition for podcast ad dollars is going to intensify further -- bad news for any creator whose show is limited to a single platform. Despite exponential growth in the number of shows available to listeners -- on Spotify alone, that number grew from around 700,000 at the end of 2019 to 4.7 million in September 2022, per company reports -- the podcast ad market, while still growing, has not expanded nearly as rapidly. Spotify's U.S. podcast ad revenue is projected to steadily increase by about 40 percent year-over-year through 2024, far down from the explosive growth rates of 2020 and 2021 as its podcast operations expanded.
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Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy More

Podcast Exclusivity Is Quickly Becoming an Outdated Strategy

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  • Good riddance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday January 26, 2023 @03:49PM (#63243093)

    The whole point of podcasting, in my mind, was its simple and open nature - record audio/video, then link to it from an RSS feed people can monitor. "Exclusive podcasts" shouldn't even be a thing.

    • The whole point of podcasting, in my mind, was its simple and open nature - record audio/video, then link to it from an RSS feed people can monitor. "Exclusive podcasts" shouldn't even be a thing.

      Well, that's certainly why they took off. The barrier to entry seems quite low (although I don't know what goes on behind the scenes).

      That being said, I don't know if there's any "should" about it. Podcasters want to get paid, at least if they're doing this as a full time gig. You can have exclusive, licensed content or you can have in-episode ads. Pick your poison.

      Personally, I have my favorite podcast player (BeyondPod) and if the content can't be found there, well, there's already about 1,000 times as mu

      • Well, that's certainly why they took off. The barrier to entry seems quite low (although I don't know what goes on behind the scenes).

        That being said, I don't know if there's any "should" about it. Podcasters want to get paid, at least if they're doing this as a full time gig. You can have exclusive, licensed content or you can have in-episode ads. Pick your poison.

        Personally, I have my favorite podcast player (BeyondPod) and if the content can't be found there, well, there's already about 1,000 times as much content as I have time to listen to. But if Joe Rogan and Spotify want to try making a go of it in a walled garden, well bless their hearts.

        I think part of the problem with Spotify is that it's a terrible Podcast player.

        Music and Podcasts are very different kinds of media, and the things that make Spotify fantastic for music makes it terrible for Podcasts.

        Beyond that, to the extent I tried listening to one of my favourite podcasts that went "Spotify exclusive" I was still getting ads despite being a paying Spotify subscriber.

        But the bigger problem is I don't think top Podcasts are the audience draw that top shows or bands are. If my favourite P

      • The thing is most podcasts operated as for-profit businesses kind of suck. The ones that are passion projects are much better. Fall of Civilizations, for example, is one of the most professionally done, well researched podcasts I've seen, and it's just a guy with a PhD and passion.

        Rogan is actually a good example too. He didn't start it to make money.

      • Didn't I read that Spotify paid Harry "I just want be a real boy" Windsor and Mrs. Windsor $25 million to do a podcast?
        What could they possibly have to say?

      • "Podcasters want to get paid, at least if they're doing this as a full time gig."

        You do realize that if you just ask your listeners for money, they will send you money. There's no need for advertisements, in fact advertisements keep you away from that sweet listener money.

    • Yeap - there's two popular podcasts here in Brazil that I want to hear, but can't, because of $potify exclusivity (without login, what I don't do, there's only a 30 seconds preview...)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 )

      I feel like definitionally, they're not. If you can't get them through RSS, they're not a podcast, they're just an audio recording on the internet that may or may not be episodic and periodic.

      And remember, Spotify has a robust "podcast" strategy because every moment you listed to podcasts on their network is a moment they don't have to pay a label streaming royalties. They want your subscription dollars to stay with them, not be paid out to the (ugh) ARTISTS that make the service possible.

    • The whole point of podcasting, in my mind, was its simple and open nature - record audio/video, then link to it from an RSS feed people can monitor. "Exclusive podcasts" shouldn't even be a thing.

      If you think this, you haven't seen good podcasts. Podcasts are similar to video games in which they started off simple (think Atari 2600 and before) and video games evolved around the PS2/PS3 era to be a rich medium for storytelling, with examples like Bioshock and Dead Space (2 of my personal favorites).

      Joe Rogan, for example, is actually a great interviewer and has guests that I have learned a lot from, like Andrew Huberman or Peter Zeihan. And yes, I have some issues with Rogan personally, but he

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )
        Joe Rogan is an absolutely terrible interviewer or at least he was when I listened to a couple of episodes a few years back. He's ignorant and uninformed about so many of the things he ends up talking to guests about. I could let that go if he was openly just asking them to layout their perspective, but he regularly doubles down on bollocks he's clueless about. The fact that he's had to censor big chunks of his Dave Asprey interviews because they are full of patently false nonsense, up their with COVID deni

      • Podcasts just sounds like talk-radio. Haven't really cared about talk-radio for over a decade but I realize a lot of people enjoy it.

        Clearly anyone with a microphone and a computer or cellphone can start a podcast, so the barrier to entry is pretty low. That's cool and I could see how if you want to listen to a topic you could probably find someone willing to chatter about it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      What bugs me is how they've been shilling it for the past few years like it was some new, exciting thing, particularly Clear Cha...(ahem) er, I mean iHeartMedia. (Even their new name was already an old trope by the time they adopted it!) The word "podcast" goes back at least as far as 2004, when Apple was suing anyone using the word "pod" in connection with it, and the use of RSS goes as far back as 2000.

  • This is funny to me. (Score:3)

    by jdawgnoonan ( 718294 ) on Thursday January 26, 2023 @04:31PM (#63243211)
    If a podcast is not distributed openly via RSS to all pod catching devices I am not sure that it can really be called a podcast. The era of podcasting exclusives deserves to die. I personally prefer podcasts to which I directly subscribe or that I pay value for value money to. I detest ads and prefer content that does not have to be okay for some corporate marketing department.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Ad supported podcasts, and podcasts on streaming platforms that offer other content, are very valuable to people without much money. Like kids.

      I appreciate them too because sometimes I want to listen to just one episode, without having to create an account, sign up, subscribe, add payment info etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      If a podcast is not distributed openly via RSS to all pod catching devices I am not sure that it can really be called a podcast. The era of podcasting exclusives deserves to die. I personally prefer podcasts to which I directly subscribe or that I pay value for value money to. I detest ads and prefer content that does not have to be okay for some corporate marketing department.

      This is really just the first sign that people have stopped caring about podcasts... which is to say they've stopped caring about minor Z list internet celebrities.

      The podcast about growing pot plants that people with a genuine interest in potted plants subscribe to really isn't what's under threat here.

  • Even Microsoft Office division saw this as the dumbest thing when they realize they had to maintain a completely different look and feel for Office on the Mac and on the PC. Now Office has one unified look and feel and experience. Even the browser version is pretty consistent and as long as you pay for the service, it doesn't matter if you want to use a mac, or a pc, or an iphone, or an android. It all has the same consistent look and feel and it's up to the end user to decide how they want to use the appli

    • Perhaps the movie studios will realize that each having their own streaming service is not the way to get the most people to watch the movie.
    • And yet the world of streaming video has gone strongly towards content exclusivity in recent years. There was a time when you could just get netflix and have pretty much every movie that was available for streaming.

      • The content owners (not to be confused with creators) probably realized how much money they were missing out on. Why not setup your own streaming service if you are Disney or one of those major owners?

        I mean, I guess maybe if you can get enough people to license your content it might be worth it but I strongly suspect they are making a lot more money forcing people onto their platform.

  • what an awful idea in the first place. we need all exclusivity deals to end, the end result is needing hundreds of accounts to access the content you want. We need the opposite.

  • 40% growth is bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Thursday January 26, 2023 @05:22PM (#63243359)
    JFC. Is there any other product out there where 40% annual revenue increases are a problem?

  • A different app for each podcast? No thanks. (Score:4)

    by Squirmy McPhee ( 856939 ) on Thursday January 26, 2023 @06:06PM (#63243467)

    I am about as tired of apps for every little activity as I am of store loyalty cards. I love podcasts, I listen to a lot of them, I support some of them financially. But I have one app where I queue and listen to my podcasts. I already have more podcasts in my queue than I have time. If I can't listen to your podcast in my app of choice, I'm not going to listen to it. Period.

    Case in point: I loved listening to the Friday Night Comedy podcast from BBC. Then sometime last year they announced new podcasts would be released exclusively on the BBC Sounds app, and through other sources with a four-week delay. With a lot of podcasts, the delay would be fine with me, but most of their comedy is topical and if I can't listen to it until four weeks later, I'm not interested. So instead of downloading BBC Sounds and switching between apps, I simply filled the hole with another podcast and stopped listening to Friday Night Comedy altogether.

    If a store requires me to download their app to be part of their loyalty program, I won't be part of their loyalty program. If a broadcaster requires me to download their app to listen to their broadcasts, I won't listen to their broadcasts. It's not like I don't have plenty of alternatives.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N1AK ( 864906 )
      Sadly a lot of what the BBC does with online content is determined by how they are funded and the UK governments intentions for that in future. The BBC has been told its current funding model, the license fee, will go but still can't advertise. This means at some point in the future it may have to generate revenue by charging for access or by advertising, so having its own set of apps etc is attractive to the BBC because it makes a transition to a Netflix/ITVx style revenue model more viable. It sucks, and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There's a way around the BBC Sound app requirement. Download get_iplayer. You can use it to download individual episodes, or set it up as a background service that downloads them automatically upon release. With a little effort you can get them to sync to your mobile devices automatically too, or run a local RSS server.

  • Podcast? (Score:3)

    by John Smith 2294 ( 5807072 ) on Thursday January 26, 2023 @07:42PM (#63243649)
    You mean audio files posted on a web server? The whole thing is dumb. "podcast" is a word for Apple users who never used an ftp client.

    • Tell me how you can listen to Joe Rogan using an ftp client?

      And while you're at it, it's written FTP not ftp, and was never a part of podcasting since they were fundamentally distributed via RSS feeds and were effectively never transferred via FTP as that protocol had largely died for internet downloads long before podcasts became a thing.

      If you're going to be smug at least try and be correct as well.

  • If I can't download it with wget, I'm not listening to it.

  • Never found one I wanted to listen to, found them boring. If driving, I'd rather listen to music. To me it's like watching/listening to ESPN sport jocks talking about football etc all the time.....zzzz. I don't. If at home, there is ALOT of other stuff I want to do. On the other hand, my daughter likes to listen to Unsolved Crimes podcast from Athens Ga. .....and end up listening to them some while she plays it. Otherwise, no thanks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      Penn Jillette had one back in 2012 or so that ran for a year or two. I think that's the only one I've ever listened to.

  • If I can't find it on a platform I already have access to ... it doesn't really exist ...

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