This American Life embracing listener support is an inflection point for the ecosystem

The email from Ira Glass started just like the show, I can hear his familiar voice.

Ira here.

Maybe you heard the little promo episode we dropped today but in case you didn’t: We’re starting a premium subscription version of our program. The regular free version will continue the way you know it, everywhere it is now. But there’ll be this new version with bonus content and other stuff.

This is great news — our reasons:

1. More podcasts will consider listener-supported shows, using one way or another.
2. More listeners will consider supporting podcasts, one way or another.
3. If a high single-digit percentage of listeners support the show directly, This American Life (TAL) could be getting more than they were from ad money.
4. The revenue will be more reliable than ad money.
5. Listeners might not hear ads in future. But if they don’t mind, they’ll be there on the free version.
6. No one loses, creators and listeners gain.
7. The price is very reasonable — US$8 a month
8. The WBEZ and the TAL staff can put more time into content rather than courting advertisers.
9. TAL is going to learn more about their audience and could find even more great stories to cover.
10. Free and paid listeners will benefit from even better episodes (see point 9).
11. It’s a more efficient use of money — direct-ish to creators. Content gets money for advertising. Hard to think of another benefit. But the supply chain in the ad industry means content creators are often the last to be paid, and end up receiving a small percentage of what the brand might have shelled out in the first place. One to maybe five or more cuts could’ve been taken or paid out along the way.

You can support TAL here or support a bundle of podcasts you enjoy using Lenny.fm.

Announcing the change, Ira Glass, founder and executive producer, wrote in an email:

We’re doing this out of necessity. The ad market’s changed a lot in the podcast industry and it has affected nearly everyone making shows like ours. There’ve been massive staff cuts at some podcasting companies. Others have gone under. At This American Life this year, we expect our ad revenue to be a third less than what we brought in just a few years ago. A third! That’s obviously a huge drop — ads are the main way we fund our show — and so we’re creating this subscription version to replace that revenue.

Basically, if you like what we’re doing, we’re asking you to step up and subscribe.

This American Life has been instrumental in introducing US and other English-language countries to podcasts.

The show and its extraordinary producers and reporters have created episodes so compelling that people will try podcasting just to hear them, think 129 Cars.

On Reddit (more comments below) u/Peter_Panarchy is a good example of this long experience changing with the show.

I’ve listened to TAL for over 20 years and haven’t missed an episode since I discovered podcast apps were a thing 14 years ago. I also haven’t ever given them any money beyond what I contribute to my local public radio station. I’m happy to subscribe.

There have also been other ways to support TAL in the past.

For a hot minute PocketCasts was one way, WBEZ being a public broadcaster you could always donate and there’s TAL merch too.

Listeners to support the show, however, is more direct in its “sell” (ad-free, exclusive content, back catalogue — unmissable on their website).

As important is the meaningful amount of revenue the show receives — probably 90-something per cent of gross revenue after fees.

Thinking back, I’d made a similar recommendation that focused on publishers in this 2019 Medium article — Publishers with subscription products have a great opportunity in podcasting

The point was to encourage publishers to advertise their product on the product.

If publishers had a subscription product they should advertise that product on their podcasts rather than take ads from brands.

More about this below, but first!

Reactions on Reddit

Most were supportive of the change and appreciative of the time and effort it takes to put together the show.

u/hithere297 — Ah the 2010s!

Considering how ad revenue’s declining everywhere, I think most publications/podcasts are gonna go the way of paid subscriptions at this point. A shame, but I also think the 2010s era of having nearly everything free/cheap all the time probably wasn’t sustainable in the first place.

u/BandFromFreakyFriday — Industry reckoning.

I just want to add as someone in the industry — things are bleak right now. Have you noticed an uptick in sketchy gambling and phone game ads on your favorite podcasts? Major podcasting networks like NYT begging for money? There’s a reason. We’ve passed podcasting’s peak. Advertisers are heavily cutting their budgets, people are getting laid off, and the mid-size, charting podcasts within networks & with avid fanbases aren’t making money. Actually, no one is making money right now. It’s not just Gimlet.

There’s no money in podcasting anymore. Small boats are sinking, and the big ones are going to have to make major updates like TAL to stay afloat.

Sorry if this was a bummer — wanted to add context. All that to say, if you have a podcast you love, strongly consider supporting them or sending them a one time donation.

u/Fair_Platform3204 — In context.

I’ve paid more for less — just subscribed

u/rawrmeowchirp — Once-off fee of $4.99, not so sustainable.

Who else BOUGHT the TAL all access app years ago only for it to be discontinued?? I understand there studio’s struggle but to ignore that they definitely already did a version of this and then yoinked it back is irritating.

Advertising to get advertising

In 2017 our independent production company, Nearly Media, needed listeners so we bought tram ads to advertise our new podcasts — Why we bought tram ads to promote our podcasts, Mumbrella.

The article above was more useful to our business than the advertising (one tram running through Melbourne’s eastern suburbs won’t get listeners, but we did it to get the publicity of the Mumbrella article).

This is one paragraph the editor thought was interesting:

It’s fun to think about the layers upon layers of what we’re doing here. Advertising to get more listeners so we can sell more advertising. And in selling more advertising we’ll probably spend more on advertising.

The funny thing about podcasts is that the medium, audio, is the same as radio but there’s still no effective transfer of radio advertising business models to podcasts that’s equitable.

Arguably that’s because the market is meritocratic, but it’s hard to argue that only the top 5% of shows deserve to get anything back.

New models built for Podcasts

Newer business models that use similar tech to podcasts — computer code, the internet — are much more likely to be long-term winners for podcast creators and listeners.

They encourage audience connection, are underpinned by an efficient transfer of funds, need fewer middlemen and get producers faster feedback.

This is where I say Lenny.fm is fantastic and we’ve put a lot of time into considering how the podcast ecosystem, technology, producers and listeners all interact to come up with it.

Please consider it if you’re a Creator, sign up below, or a Listener, here.

Other great Podcast Listener Support tools that can be used in parallel:

• Supercast.com — used by This American Life
• Supportingcast.fm — created by Slate.com
• Glow.fm — owned by Libsyn
• Patreon.com
• Truefans.fm

There’s also a host of others out there that can be adapted for podcast and/or general content creators.

The point is, which is why we started Lenny.fm, creators deserve to have every chance to receive support/revenue/money for what they produce.