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It’s become like a broken record in the mainstream press. Who will be the Netflix of podcasting?
It’s a story that pops up every few months now, especially when a new company joins the fray, bulked up with VC money, claiming it’s about to turn the podcasting space upside down. It’s a story that drives podcasting’s forefathers (and mothers) berserk, because they’ve been hearing it for years. It was the running joke at Podfest in Orlando this year.
Last month it was an app called Brew that was going to change the world.
This week, Fast Company throws Netflix in the headline as part of its Luminary coverage. Luminary, with its $100 million in VC funding, officially launched Tuesday. The hope of CEO Matt Sacks is that listeners will pay $7.99 every month to listen to shows without ads. A tough bet in a world where consumers are cutting their cords more and more every day. Not to mention how easy it is to simply press the “fast forward” button on your phone, and poof, those ads are gone. By the way, ads on podcasts have not come anywhere close to the annoying stage that you hear on radio every day. So where is there a clamoring for shows with no ads?
Luminary’s $100 million in funding is nothing to sneeze at, and kudos to all those creators who are now going to be paid for their hard work. The Fast Company article asks the question, with Luminary open for business, whether the platform justifies the hype. We shall see. Are the premium shows on Luminary so much better than free shows, in similar categories? Will enough people cough up $100 per year to pay for content they’re accustomed to getting free?
How many subscribers will Luminary need to become profitable? Does being profitable even matter anymore? Is Luminary a long-term player in our space or is it being built to become part of a larger company’s overall audio strategy?
Luminary will also have to deal with a field that seems to get more crowded by the day. After all, how many apps does a listener really need or want on their phone to listen to podcasts. There’s Apple Podcasts of course, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Pocket Casts and so many others. Then again, maybe, just maybe Luminary IS the Netflix of Podcasting.
Comments:
But that’s what podcasting is — audio Netflix. Way too many choices of great content, and a whole bunch of stylish crap in need of a producer and editor. No?