Pay To Play

What's it worth to be on a podcast?

A lot, apparently, judging by the numbers thrown around in a widely-disseminated article this week by Bloomberg's Ashley Carman that examined how some podcasters are making a lot -- one is said to have earned $50,000 -- in appearance fees. Some charge about $3,500 per appearance. One cited in the article charges $20,000 to $40,000 per interview, which they say represents buying out all the ad inventory in the episode. (Sure it does.) The suggested price is $100 to $150 per thousand listeners, as if anyone tells the truth about their download figures or can prove that downloaders actually listen.

The article raises other questions about the Wild West of podcasting, and how shows don't always disclose that they've taken money from guests for appearances. While you might think that the podcasting industry is mature enough to have developed some kind of ethical framework for things like this, it's hard for that to occur when you have a never-ending stream of new entrants who aren't always aware that it's both good ethical practice and probably legally required (ask Instagram influencers who have been caught on this) to disclose that the guest paid for the appearance. It's reminiscent of the early days of Top 40 radio and I'll just leave it at that. It's also very much like talk radio stations airing infomercials, but those do come with disclaimers. It's also like how some radio stations have sold guest appearance slots, also (usually) disclosed but pretty awful, and I can think of at least one major talk station who went that route and ruined itself to the point of changing formats.

But I get it. Someone waves a stack of hundreds in your face, and you're going to want to take it. You do all that work and you're struggling to sell ads and hasten the day when you can just be a podcaster and quit your day job. (Someone has even created an online marketplace platform to enable podcasters to broker out their guest slots, reasoning that buying guest slots is like paying a PR firm to market yourself and you might as well just pay the podcaster.) Is it so much worse than selling a host-read ad? What's the harm?

Here's the harm: Who in their right mind wants to hear that? Do you hold your audience in such contempt that you would serve up an hour of talk about shower heads or reverse osmosis water filters? Would YOU want to listen to that? Don't give me that "I would have booked that guest even without the payment" line. No, you wouldn't, not if you have any respect for the audience or your own motivations for doing the show. It's a pure money grab, and unless you're planning to lie about your audience size to get advertisers and guest bookings, you're sacrificing audience growth for cash up front.

Whatever the problems with talk radio infomercials, you can safely say that listeners don't need to make a decision to tune in to most paid programming. They happen to tune in to the station on Sunday morning, the infomercial just happens to be there, they bail until there's something more entertaining on. Podcasts? You choose to listen and/or subscribe to a podcast, and if the content involves someone who paid to tout their product, why would you subscribe? Why would you download it? Why wouldn't you go find shows that are entertaining and don't consist of a boring interview with an advertiser?

(This is not, incidentally, an indictment of branded content podcasts. Many branded content podcasts put their emphasis on the content, whether the brand is all over it or just used subtly. Admit it, you'd want to listen to "Inside Trader Joe's" even though you know Trader Joe's paid to produce it, because you want to know why they discontinued Butter Toffee Peanuts. If you're not into the product or sponsor, you just won't listen, and that's fine. Nothing lost. You know what it is up front, right from the title or description, a promotional tool for the sponsor, and it's like voluntarily picking up the sale circular when you walk into the store. And some branded content podcasts barely have anything to do with the brand other than a sponsor tag.)

(Also, some guests charge podcasters for interviews, like Manny Pacquiao charging $15,000. Podcasters, save your money.)

More importantly, what does selling your interview slots say about why you're podcasting in the first place? I'm not suggesting that podcasts are some kind of pure art form never to be sullied by commercial motivation. You can desire to make a lot of money podcasting (good luck with that!) and still care about the content you're creating. But selling guest slots indicates that you dont care about your audience, you don't care about the quality of your show, you just want the money, and you can rationalize all day long about how you'd have booked that guest anyway, which you know you would not have done. Can't you do better than that?

I hope you can. Sell all the ads you want, slap sponsor tags on everything, sell subscriptions, do whatever you need to do to make money... but don't sell the content unless you're making an actual branded content show. And if you do succumb and take the money, disclose, disclose, disclose. Show some respect to the audience and yourself. There may be a lot of money to be earned for selling a podcast interview. It's not a lot of money for your soul.

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Wow, that's harsh, isn't it? No neat way to segue into the plug for All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page, so I'm not even gonna try. Just go there. Find it by clicking here, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

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Vin Scully was the greatest sportscaster and one of the greatest communicators in history, but you knew that. Everyone seems to have posted a Vin story, and here's one of mine: sitting in the cafeteria part of the Dodger Stadium press box (thanks, Tom Boman), eating a rushed dinner before a game, when Vin, just out of makeup with paper still protecting his shirt collar, walking by on the way to the booth, stopped, turned to the table, and said, "Say, have I ever told you about the time..." and launching into another amazing story, unprompted, minutes before going on the air. I don't remember the stories he told (he did that more than once), because during the whole thing, all I could think was "VIN SCULLY IS TELLING ME A STORY! VIN SCULLY!!!" and my brain shorted out.

He was the best.

Also, another reminder: I'll be at Podcast Movement in Dallas August 23-26. Register here. See you there.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon