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(By Ed Ryan) I’ve never paid for a podcast in my life. I’ve never paid a monthly subscription for a streaming music service. There’s just too much free stuff to choose from to have to pay for content.
The family did ditch cable about 6 months ago for Netflix, but honestly, I feel like I’m paying the, now $12.99 monthly fee, so we can binge watch Ozark and maybe one or two other shows.
There was a lot of discussion about Luminary at Podfest last week and their ambitious plan to get listeners to pay $8.00 per month for their service. There was a lot of skepticism on the part of many of podcasting’s veterans and here’s why I think they might be wrong.
At 52 years old I’m pretty set in my ways. My music app of choice has been iHeartRadio. It’s free. We have three country stations in our city so when those long commercial breaks begin it’s easy to find music down the dial, most of the time. Spotify wasn’t even an app I had on my phone. Why clutter up the phone with another app that will never get any use? That all changed during my three hour drive to Podfest last week. 
Recently, I became addicted to Gimlet Media’s Crimetown, produced by Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier. Each season, the show focuses on the crime and corruption intertwined in the politics of a U.S city. Season one was Providence. After Smerling and Stuart-Pontier filled 18 episodes, plus bonus shows, about the antics of the Mayor and Mob, they previewed season two, which you could only hear on Spotify. The Spotify app was now on my phone.
Season two focused on Detroit. 19 more shows which included jailhouse interviews with former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, audio from FBI wire taps and great reporting. Most of all, the storytelling was brilliant. And it’s clear the amount of research, editing, writing and time that goes into producing such high-quality content is not easy and not cheap.
My second example will come as no surprise to anyone. Sarah Koenig is amazing. In season two of Serial the story of Bowe Bergdahl is the subject. Bergdahl walked off his post in Afghanistan, was captured by The Taliban, and held for five years, some of it in a cage.
The show includes interviews with military personnel from Bergdahl’s unit, his command, friends and even Taliban commanders. Again, the story-telling episode after episode is amazing, including Koenig’s sometimes vulgar language, which, at times, is shockingly entertaining because sometimes you never see it coming. She knows how to make it work. By the way, the Bergdahl season is from 2015. The show has some serious shelf life.
If Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier announced season three would cost me $8.00, I would pay for it. The show is that good and the work they do deserves compensation. If Sarah Koenig announced a topic of Serial that I thought I would like, I would pay for it. She’s that good and she’s the best storyteller I’ve listened to so far. She deserves to be paid.
Who knows if Luminary is going to be able to hammer out enough high-quality content to pay all of the content producers and providers they hire. Maybe their goal is the same as Gimlet’s; lose enough money long enough until the next Spotify comes along and swoops you up for millions.
I have no plans to pay Luminary $8.00. I have no idea what I’d be getting. With shows like Crimetown and Serial, I was able to sample them for free. The content is amazing. I know what I’d be paying for. It would be worth it to me.