Should we push "Vodcasting" to save ourselves? (Podcasting)
Can Audio kill The Video Star?
Many moons ago when I was at Sirius Satellite Radio, we started saying the phrase “Terrestrial Radio” over and over. Often it was said as part of the phrase “old fashioned terrestrial radio” The mainstream media ran with it. Somehow we made AM/FM seem old and stodgy, which it actually was.
In the last year, we’ve let these ”Video Podcast” People come take our corner.
Suddenly, to The Civilians, “a podcast” means an interview show shot on video. These days, when the media writes about “podcasting” they mean the video thing.
Let’s take our corner back.
Is it time that We The Industry start using the word Vodcast every single time we refer to that new thing? I mean every single time James, Adam, even you Todd (I don’t wanna hear about the Tiki Bar vodcast from 2007 nobody cares.)
Look, look, I get it. The Gen-Zs and Discovery and Youtube and apparently Spotify pays well. I get it. I hear you.
But Vodcasting isn’t what WE are doing. WE is you, me, the podcasters making audio shows. The other guys are making Vodcasts.
As Don Draper may have said, those other shows give you cancer, ours are toasted.
(My legal team wants me to remind you there is absolutley no evidence that Vodcasts cause cancer, take it up with Don.)
Let’s call it what it is. A podcast is a podcast and a vodcast is something else.
As I write this morning, my flow has been jerky-jerky as family members come and go and want to talk to Dad who is sitting at the breakfast table. (HEY LEAVE ME ALONE I AM WRITING A SUBSTACK is not an apporpirate thing to say to loving family members.)
In the middle of writing, I had to move my car out of the driveway to let someone else out. For my one minute excursion, I didn’t bring my phone so I pressed RADIO on “the radio.” You know, old fashioned terrestrial radio. Man, old fashioned terrestrial radio really doesn’t sound good, in this case it was one of the Big New York City FM sticks. Like really really not good. Muddy. “Narrow.” I can’t imagine using old fashioned terrestrial radio as music choice when I have CarPlay.
Some interesting thought-starters from listening to the Podnews Weekly Review. They were discussing the recent payouts to Spotify Vodcasters.
(The bold text here is a formatting choice by me, as this is a print piece.)
Sam Sethi: “I think that there is a real move. I think big shows we all said big shows will go to video.
That's because I've got the revenue to do it and to pay for a team of people to implement it. But we know that in the long tail that's never going to work. A in the long tail, you're never going to qualify.
And B you won't have the time or money or energy to keep it going anyway.
James Cridland: Well, there we go. Sam has spoken. I know that John McDermott has said that most people who are trying video now will stop by July, which is an interesting thing, so let's see if that's true as well.”
Hey, that’s ME! I’m John McDermott! Yes, I did say that. I’m still saying it. And I think Sam is saying what I am saying. Yes, the big shows who can do it right will make Vodcasts.
For the rest of us - well, if I were Headliner I would up my game really soon, like later today, as that whole Static Image Thing doesn’t work all that well. Furthermore, I’m of the opinion that “Two Heads in Zoom Boxes” isn’t going to be good enough for Vodcasting for much longer.
You’re going to have to do video right to make your Vodcast. Do you have the budget, the skills, the team to do it? I’m going to guess no, maybe and no.
Is your boss going to look ay the Q1 and Q2 numbers and decide it didn’t work? My experience in Corporate America is that’s what will happen.
I think for now, despite some eye-opening Spotify payouts, that I will stick to my July prediction.
Let’s take a look at those payouts.
James Cridland mentioned:
“We've also got a couple of others here the Kinda Funny Gamecast never heard of it that added video to Spotify in the last two months and they have earned over $10,000 in Spotify revenue. They are doing apparently 124,000 downloads, which is quite small 124,000 downloads but still $10,000 in Spotify revenue”
Ten Grand on 124,000 downloads is some nice money.
I actually am an existing follower of Kinda Funny Games. Those guys pump put a LOT of content under several similar titles (Kinda Funny Insertthinghere.)
I consume the audio versions on Pocketcasts.
One video I clicked on looked like this. Nice enough set. I had never watched them before.
Becuase it’s a video games show, they can do cool things like this.
Their channel also has Members Only Videos.
If all this content already exists, why not stick it up on Spotify and take their money? No brainer. And $10,000 for the producer to take an extra 30 seconds to upload a video, that’s some good repurposing.
Also, that’s a Vodcast if I ever saw one, even if I listen to it on Pocketcasts.
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At some point James mentioned that The Rest Is Entertainment has a video component. Dude, that’s like one of my Top 3 Podcasts (often recommended on What I’m Listening To Wednesday by me) and I had zero idea they did video. Never thought about it, never wanted it, and like James, have no intention of consuming it.
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There are a lot of shows out there. A lot. Like a lot a lot.
James and Sam, neither living in America, also said they were unfamiliar with Two Bears, One Cave. I think that perfectly illustrates just how many Shows are out there and let me take the extra step here to be very clear this paragraph is not meant to be “How could they not….” but rather to illustrate that there a lot of shows out there, and we don’t all listen to the same things.
I’m very familiar with Bears, because I host Daily Comedy News, and have been programming Comedy Radio since 2004 (factually making me the world’s most tenured programmer in the format, humblebrag.)
Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer are super popular comedians.
As an experiment, as I type this, my college senior son and my wife are in the room. I asked them if they knew the names Tom Segura or Bert Kresicher. I asked my wife to go first.
My wife said yes to Tom and didn’t know Bert. My son knew both. End of in-depth market research.
As I write this on Sunday morning, Two Bears is #176 on the United States Apple Podcasts Overall chart.
As I write this on Sunday morning, the #4 show on the United States Apple Podcasts Overall chart is something called Blink. I’ve never heard of it.
There sure are a lot of shows out there.
This morning I was looking at the download numbers for the podcasts we make at Caloroga Shark Media and noticed a few things had ticked up.
You know what is working?
PROMOS.
Good old fashioned promos. I made some :30s and ran them in our inventory and they are working. Sometimes it’s just Back To The Future with all this.
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Anything that didn’t make sense today or is a typo was brought to you by Don’t Try To Write At The Sunday Morning Breakfast Table You Idiot.
