in Podcasting |

How to avoid the corporate takeover of podcasting

In the past two weeks, there have been quite a lot of postings on the startup Luminary and its predatory practices toward podcast creators. Dave Winer, John Gruber, Marco Arment, and Smokey have voiced concerns, among others. The main benefit of Luminary is getting premium audio content for a fee, as well as regular (free) podcasts. The main concern, as I see it, is that Luminary is messing up the information from the free podcasts, and also hoping to capture listeners within their app/ecosystem, so that users would use Luminary as their podcast app of choice.

Content providers trying to lock in users is not a new concept. All of the major video streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon) are producing original content that can only be viewed through their service. Apple and Google through iTunes and Google Play are gateways that people access podcasts, and Apple has been called out before for controlling podcast distribution through its extensive directory.

To me, these are the two ways of avoiding the takeover:

  1. Innovate on features and discoverability
  2. Find ways to help podcast producers know more about their listeners

Marco Arment took a nice step on point 1 with his clip feature that he added to the Overcast podcast app. Other innovations might be to support more distributed directories to assist in podcast discovery (OPML inclusion, anyone?).

Progress on point 2 might be difficult (requiring collaboration, between podcast app makers and other groups of people), but it might be better to band together to create new standards/processes/protocols than to be “picked off” one by one.

 

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  1. @AndySylvester the film comp is interesting … Prime is horrible on this front … I find around 50 to 60 percent of what I try to watch after seeing something promote in their app is getting the message … ‘how to watch in prime’ … and then told to sign up for showtime, hbo or even worse … buy the dvd ….

  2. @JohnPhilpin my wife and I are barely starting to explore Britbox, so I don’t have any direct experience with any of the other streaming services, but I thought it was a good “lock-in” analogy….

Webmentions

  • This week, a Substack newsletter was posted about problems that podcasts from former podcast studio Gimlet Media were experiencing (getting cancelled). In 2019, Spotify purchased Gimlet Media for $230 million dollars (more here on other Spotify podcast acquisitions). Why did people think being acquired by a big company was going to allow them to keep their artistic freedom and continue to do things the way they had done them? Demonstration of control of the channel (a la CBS/NBC/ABC of the 60s/70s/80s – you had to convince them to approve your show to get on the air) – maybe go back to producing podcasts yourself? After all, you must have a lot of money after that acquisition. Chapter 57 of this story discusses the Joe Rogan move to Spotify, and I wrote in 2019 about how to avoid the corporate takeover of podcasting. As Joel Grey and Liza Minelli sang in the musical “Cabaret“, money makes the world go around. If people want to produce podcasts to make money, there are ways to innovate, but the best place to start is to make great podcasts.

  • The recent news of Joe Rogan moving his podcast to Spotify has started a predictable stream of posts about “the death of independent podcasting” or “the podcasting world is now Spotify versus everyone else“. I think Wendy Grossman is more on target saying “it will be much harder for their creators to find audiences and revenues as Spotify becomes the primary gatekeeper…”. And, of course, Dave Winer rightly points out that “Podcasting is booming.” and “It’s open, no platform vendor, anyone can use it.”
    I think this points up several topics. The first is “why am I making a podcast?” (hat tip to Simon Sinek). If it is to make money, then sure, go ahead and make a deal with a company (like Joe Rogan). Anyone who creates content or a body of work can choose how they want to monetize that (think Patreon, subscription based-sites, etc.). The semantics of calling that “a podcast” could be debated (John Gruber had a good post on that topic when Luminary bought up some content last year).
    If some makes a podcast because they have a topic they are interested in, or for fun, or some other non-money-based reason, go ahead! (See Dave Winer comment above…). Also, see blogging…nobody keeping anyone from starting a blog out there….
    If someone wants to get/grow an audience for a podcast, the solution is simple (although not necessarily easy). Do good work, create value, market yourself – this hasn’t changed with the Spotify deal. After the Luminary deal, I commented in May 2019 that there were some areas that there were some ways to compete on distribution:

    Innovate on features and discoverability
    Find ways to help podcast producers know more about their listeners

    To me, it looks like those are still good areas to work on – anyone working on that? If not, get busy on it – or just get on with making the best podcasts you can make!

  • I’m not sure I agree with item 2… I don’t really want podcast producers to know anything about me, and wonder why they need to know anything about me. I’m going to guess it’s mainly to sell ads? If there’s another reason you’re thinking of, please do let me know!
    It would – to me –  feel like the slippery slope to the same sort of “data collection/analytics” that led to the tracking and profiling nightmare we are seeing push back against on the web. Effectively swapping one concern (walled gardens) for another (privacy).
    I have no problem with podcasters earning revenue, but I do wonder if audience targetting is the way to go. Podcasts have survived and grown thus far with the current model – otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing these predatory encroachments.
    But perhaps I’m not thinking about the problem openly enough, and with the lessons of the last few years, something could be built? 🙂