My Podcast Life

On the morning of my 40th birthday, I stopped outside an Apple store in London and looked scornfully at the products within.

I've never been fond of their products, and I made this clear to my friends who were with me at the time. One of them held a senior position within Apple and he chuckled conspiratorially. Later that evening I found out why. I opened the tightly wrapped present they had purchased me and inside was a gleaming new iPod, adorned with an inscribed message from my friends.

That device was the one I listened to my first podcast on. After I had copied all my CDs onto iTunes and transitioned from music to the spoken word. When I left Australia all those CDs went to an op shop and I presume somebody in Melbourne is now enjoying that collection of mournful American female country singers and soft rock. The iPod has also gone to God, so all I'm left with is an electronic copy of 25 years of obsessive music purchases. It's on an old laptop and I'm not even sure I can access it.

I can't remember the first podcast I listened to. But one thing I'm pretty sure of is that I'm not listening to that series now. Over the years my tastes have changed and every time I get a new device, I use it as a chance to cull my library and start again.

My current list is an eclectic mix of politics, sport, comedy and history as well as the occasional one-off series such as Serial. I enjoyed these as interlopers in the normal dreary routine of my weekly episodes. “13 minutes to the Moon” remains my favourite.

One thing that troubles me though, is the business model of podcasts. Increasingly they are becoming the main income source for artists. Many of the ones I listen to are free, subsidised by licence payers in Ireland and the UK.

The others are commercial to one extent or another. Some depend on advertising alone. This suits me as a resident of New Zealand who tends to listen to northern hemisphere podcasts. Advertising is local and few Kiwi companies bother advertising on the obscure Irish podcasts I listen to.

As a result, I'm not tempted by these offers of an ad free experience in return for a small monthly stipend.

Neither am I tempted by the offer of additional episodes in return for cash. I already struggled to get through the list I have, not helped by an OCS compulsion to listen to everything I've downloaded.

So, I'm left with the ones who make a shameless plea each week for nothing more than a guilt free listen. Podcasting must be the only product that is initially offered for free before they try to guilt you into paying for it.

I have a problem with paying for something I don't have to. If offered a view over the fence rather than paying at the turnstile, I'll choose the fence every time. I don't think it's because I'm tight, I just don't like the idea that I'm paying for something that others are getting for free. I also wonder about equity. I have about five podcasts that depend on voluntary contribution and if I paid for all of them, it would be more than I used to pay for Sky Sports at the height of my hedonistic TV watching.

Most of the ones who plea for money are comedians. Historians and economists are usually more circumspect. They know that the product they produce would previously have been on radio. They might have been paid for this but it's unlikely it was more than the advertising they manage to attract for their products now.

Comedians never admit it, but they are the ones who benefit most from the development of podcasting. Most of the stuff I listen to is too sweary to have ever made it onto mainstream media. They can find an audience now that was never previously available. In the old days, they earned an income by touring the country and playing in as many venues as possible. This would involve travel costs, hotel costs, venue rental, promotion and all the non-financial hassle of being away from your family for a month.

Now you can sit in your bedroom with a cheap microphone and reach a bigger audience than you could with six months of touring. A couple of thousand subscribers would earn the comedian the same income as they had in the past for a lot less hassle and for a lower cost. And when they do want to tour, they end up with bigger venues as they now have a larger dedicated audience to promote too.

Given my experience with podcasts and particularly the fact that I tend to get bored with them after about six months, I'm reluctant to sign up for a payment schedule. Like gym memberships, I’ll forget to cancel and find myself paying for something in years to come that I no longer listen to.

I think that there needs to be a new economic model. Perhaps, a pay per listen process set at a small notional fee. I would be happy to pay for this. And surely technology is sufficient these days to support this.

Of course, on the music side, I now listen exclusively on Spotify. I'm happy to pay a monthly subscription for this that is roughly equal to the amount that I used to spend on CDs. I do think however, that if CDs still existed, there would reach a point where I would stop buying them and be content with the haul I already had.

As things stand, I'll be paying for Spotify until I stop listening to music, which hopefully will be the day I finally stop listening to anything.

Perhaps 2024 is the time to change and finally pay for something. And I might see if I can access those old CD’s too.