You Get What You Pay For

Okay, then, how do we get people to pay for all this?

That, of course, is the Big Question of the Day for all content creators, and it's going to be an increasingly difficult one for radio, and podcasters. It's not like we haven't been warned that the traditional advertising models are under attack, or that the things we took for granted -- audience size/reach leads to big bucks -- don't always apply anymore. But here we are.

I'm bringing this up not because I have any answers, but because.... all right, so I was reading a story about the Eagles on The Athletic, and shortly thereafter I saw some more articles about how The Athletic, a subscription sports website, is accelerating its plan to poach beat writers from newspapers across North America. The Athletic believes that there's a market for the kind of sports coverage they'll be offering, local and national stories that go deeper than game stories, written by familiar and respected reporters. They're banking on the same thing the Washington Post and New York Times are doing: convincing consumers that what they're offering is worth a few bucks a month.

And that's what Netflix and Hulu and all the Subscription Video On Demand players are banking on, too, isn't it? We've been told that people won't pay for what they've come to expect for free, but that's not always the case. If the content's perceived as being worth the cost, people are showing that they'll pay. Sure, there will always be a certain number of people who will resort to "borrowed" passwords, but there are more and more examples of people willing to pay for content, if it's good.

Which brings us to radio. You can't charge for broadcast radio. There are a million podcasts and streams available for free. If advertising revenue growth isn't going to be an adequate business model in the long run -- or if it's not enough to finance the kind of quality programming that can light a fire under that revenue model -- what will work? Yeah, well, if I had the answer.... okay, maybe I can at least speculate. We've seen some stabs at subscription podcasting, like Stitcher Premium and PodcastOne Premium, but I don't think we're quite at the point where consumers see the value proposition there. You're asking people to pay for things they haven't sampled and don't really know. Netflix streaming didn't take off until "House of Cards" got buzz; Hulu relied on exclusives of recent network and cable TV shows until "The Handmaid's Tale" got people interested. SiriusXM and TuneIn dangle sports play-by-play to get people to subscribe. Even The Athletic is trying that by signing prominent writers like Ken Rosenthal and Peter Gammons, writers who have followings and are known quantities. The gamble of all of these is that you'll see that they have something you want and you'll pay for it.

That's the premium model. Or maybe it's the Patreon model -- the public broadcasting model, sort of, but instead of tote bags and Rick Steves DVDs, you get bonus episodes and maybe a limited-edition t-shirt. Or maybe it's a flat monthly fee for multiple channels of content, and if that sounds an awful lot like SiriusXM, well, there you go; all you need is to figure out how to get people to sign up for a free trial the way you get one with your new car. Maybe you do it the way the Washington Post did it, by giving every Amazon Prime customer a free trial, or how Hulu now comes as a "free bonus" with Sprint unlimited data plans (it's buried in what you pay for phone service). Maybe it's how another Amazon company, Audible, created a don't-call-them-podcasts original content division and made the shows exclusive to subscribers. Music radio has to come to grips with the fact that some people are taking money they might have spent on some kind of subscription or bonus content plan from radio and instead spending it on Spotify. The rest of radio -- the personality part, the spoken word content, the news and sports -- could see premium options from other providers do the same. (If you DO subscribe to SiriusXM or a premium podcast network, you'll listen to those more because you're committed to paying for them. If that option grows, traditional radio needs to have an answer.)

But the content still needs to be special. You can't take a typical radio station and suddenly charge for it. You CAN charge for additional content that's worth something to listeners. All of this is to say that not only does the radio industry have to develop new content for a new age and new distribution and consumption models, it needs to embrace more and different business models for them. Sure, keep selling ads if you can, but finding a way to get people to pay for quality content should be as much a priority for radio and podcasting as it is for video and news.

The other trick is to figure out how much people will pay for how many subscriptions before they've had enough. But one step at a time.

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No matter how people listen to you, they want to hear interesting things they haven't heard before. You'll find material like that at Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports; get it by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. There's the Podcasting section at AllAccess.com/podcasts.

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Today's column was on the future of what you do, and the panel I'll be hosting at the Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood May 2-4 will be focused on exactly that, with folks who have been there and are doing that, telling you what to expect. You'll hear from Tom Leykis on subscription streaming, Steve Goldstein on Alexa skills, Rob Greenlee on podcasts, and Gina Juliano on apps. Do not miss it. Register here. As I mentioned last week, I might be on a panel at Don Anthony and Gabe Hobbs' Talk Show Boot Camp 9 in Dallas March 8th and 9th, and I WILL be on a panel at the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Convention attached to the NAB Show in Las Vegas in April. See you at one of those, I hope. Also, Fly Eagles Fly. But we have another week for that.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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