During the podcasting gold rush of the 2010s, the industry saw an injection of capital into its middle class: the creators who did this work professionally but who weren't multimillionaires... The podcast middle class is a range of shows operating in the $100,000 to $500,000 budget range, which have audiences that are large enough to sell ads against but aren't generally topping charts or breaking the internet.
...this era was as much a cynical land grab from businesses importing Silicon Valley brain-rot priorities to a fledgling media space as it was a halcyon time for expansion and experimentation. These middle-class shows were seen as viable investments, in part, because they cultivated IP for potential licensing deals.
...it's harder than ever to fund these middle-class shows. Platforms like YouTube and Spotify are incentivizing creators to incorporate video into their podcasts, a move that will likely result in more shows with lower production value, and budget dollars going toward video production rather than robust editorial teams.
With deals like Wondery's $100 million New Heights distribution deal and SiriusXM's $125 million deal for Call Her Daddy setting precedents, the biggest networks will continue to stoke the fires of the shows with the largest audiences.
Collection
[
|
...
]