A Few Blockbuster Podcasts Are Making All the Money | Hacker News Reader

A Few Blockbuster Podcasts Are Making All the Money

wsj.com

18 pointsfortran778 comments

I think that this article is likely to give people a skewed understanding of podcasting as a whole. It would be sort of like looking at Taylor Swift and Drake and trying to draw conclusions about what the music profession looks like for a small town or regional working musician.

There are people who support themselves through podcasting without any sponsorships or ads at all. There are people with small dedicated communities or who are influential in their own niche.

Again, it's just like music. Sure there are mega-stars, but as soon as you get outside of popular genres it's pretty common for things to be dominated by successful bands whose members still have day jobs.

Edit: I want to make sure to say that I don't mean this in some sort of pretentious "real art is stuff that normies haven't heard of" way. I just mean that as a practical matter if you are into non-mainstream stuff then there are probably lots of artists that are very famous in your community but aren't pulling in huge salaries.

The same is true for YouTube creators. A small number make big bucks. A few make supplemental income. Everyone else makes squat.

Media in particular seems highly vulnerable to this effect. Power law distributions are everywhere but the distribution is tight in media.

The thing I find most depressing is that the top creators on all these platforms are all trash. I know pop is usually considered trash by “heads” in most areas but the top stuff on YT, podcasts, etc. truly is trash.

The more you try to appeal to everyone the less your content is distinguishable from the most boring pap around.

The network effects will automatically power those that are the bland crap you can have on every day to pretend you have friend on the radio.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. I think much of this content is popular specifically because it appeals to the lowest common denominator. That and the creators produce this content in a very appealing way to consumers.

I think there are a couple of pretty good podcasts making six figures, at least.

"a couple"

As other people said here: it's a power law, like acting, writing, dancing, painting, or any art form. It declines pretty steeply to hobby level.

Podcasts are easy and cheap to create. I made one myself (no, this isn't my usual shameless self-promotion since it's inactive now):

https://operationcode.org/podcast

(by the way, the Dick Sonderegger interview is priceless. He joined the Marines during the Vietnam era, and they told him he was going to become a computer programmer, on IBM 1401's. He never left the US.)

Unfortunately, people only have so many hours a day to devote to listening: on a walk, at the gym, in the car. There are so "blockbusters" (Terry Gross, Wait Wait) that one doesn't have to do a lot of random exploring.

https://archive.is/ka3nH

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