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Even the big radio companies are discovering the challenge of monetizing podcasts. Beasley Media Group’s Chief Digital Content Officer Lori Burgess said her company has been “around the world and back” with podcasting and it’s time to make some money. Burgess was part of a panel, Wednesday morning, at the NAB Show in Las Vegas.
Beasley Media Group jumped into the podcasting space last year with the launch of bPod Studios, a new division dedicated to the space. It’s a mix of original content and recorded live shows from Beasley’s radio hosts that fans can listen to whenever they have the time. The company also asked its hosts to start producing podcasts, and rolled out “Best Of” shows, according to Burgess, who was promoted to her current position in January.
She also says the company has devoted a lot of time and energy to podcasting, and “now it’s time to make money.” But, she says, that’s proven to be a challenge. And she believes it’s because radio has not figured out how to market podcasts as of yet. Fred Jacobs, from Jacobs Media, has a theory about that. He believes radio is a little afraid to go all out promoting podcasting (and streaming) because those platforms are not rated the same way as over-the-air radio, so they don’t want to push those listeners away.
According to Burgess, after Beasley attempted to have their AEs sell podcasts, that idea was scrapped because the learning curve was time-consuming and, in some cases, selling podcasts was foreign to the AEs. Beasley now bundles its podcasts and sells them to national advertisers as a network.
Burgess says the Beasley plan moving forward is to figure out the content that works and market that, to develop podcasting into a platform that can be monetized. She acknowledged that original content is different to radio content. “It’s scripted. Original content needs to be refined and edited. The podcasting experience is different. It’s much more intimate.”
Comments:
PodVader -
Making money in this space is very easy - it’s a matter of how much money is the goal? I know of systems that would set a bottom line for everyone - not just the big companies (but big companies would benefit the most from them) and then they could add sales on to that. Understanding what the bottom line level of earnings is would be first and foremost, no? Well, I can certainly help any company in that regard.