Live data from Hacker News

Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

current.org

71–80 of 143 posts

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try to avoid advertising as much as possible, and it's sad that they are one more place it's invading. It's unfortunate that internet people have been falsely conditioned to believe the people who create the media we consume shouldn't be paid. Wow. I am actually amazed at the disingenuousness of that twisted interpretation of what you quoted. People will pay for what they value. The value of media has been utterl…

Show me a single study proving that "ads" are the reason consumers won't pay for journalism anymore and I will 100% change my opinion.

Consumers will pay. The funding of newspapers is a major factor of why current journalism isn’t worth paying for: clickbait headlines, access journalism, slideshow content, listicles, opinion sections. There’s plenty of ad-independent journalism out there if you look that successfully funds itself through donations or memberships.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#72
post #56

I used to love NPR but then I realized their content is exclusively liberal. Now I am disgusted by how partison they are. It's like if you listen to the news you don't get a fair report on things but a one sided view, mainly those who suffer under conservative government.

It can be argued that large majority of Americans have liberal values. Many of them have non-liberal identity that makes them think they are non-liberal. For example: 61 percent of Americans, 42 percent of Republicans, approve of labor unions 66 percent of Americans think money and wealth should be distributed more evenly. 80 percent of Americans think some corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes. 78 percent…

Why do Americans use liberal to mean left?

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#73
post #24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy their non-journalistic shows, e.g., "A Prairie Home Companion/Live From Here" and "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!", but not enough to donate when I know the money is also going to pay for their "journalism", and especially not when they clearly prefer the (fatter) checks from the corporations. But professional ethics? Fox News, MSNBC, and those other infotainment gutters are bad, but NPR is insidious: it's biased…

Just because they run sponsorships, doesn't mean that they are automatically going to do whatever it takes to make their sponsors look good. I think they do a good job of being objective and have a good track record for being highly factual.

Actually that’s exactly how I interpret the ads. How else is there?

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#74
post #54
post #10

If you want a contrary take on NPR and particularly how their political coverage is awful, Erik Loomis, a professor of union labor history and about as far left as you can get, has a number of articles on how NPR fails the national discussion http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/07/our-worthless-me...

The only political coverage worse than public radio is every other media outlet .

And people wonder why twitter is popular for politics.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#75
post #59

I've been thinking for a while that the podcasting business is ripe for disruption in terms for revenue models. From my understanding, podcast creators have to track down and get potential sponsors to sign on (if you're lucky and already have a big audience maybe they come to you). Then you splice in the audio of their ad into your podcast. Whereas I've thought that an easier model for everyone would be to have an ad…

That would be great, since I can just block those ads with a host file change.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#76
post #75
post #59

I've been thinking for a while that the podcasting business is ripe for disruption in terms for revenue models. From my understanding, podcast creators have to track down and get potential sponsors to sign on (if you're lucky and already have a big audience maybe they come to you). Then you splice in the audio of their ad into your podcast. Whereas I've thought that an easier model for everyone would be to have an ad…

That would be great, since I can just block those ads with a host file change.

DAI already exists and is performed server-side (usually badly). Outside of walled gardens, podcasting clients are unlikely to provide ad-hoc client-side support for ad-splicing.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#77
post #4

I love NPR. I'm glad they're doing well, and hope they will continue to make quality programs. But one of the major advantages which has set them apart for me is that they aren't as advertising dependent as so many of their alternatives. Avoiding ads makes it easier for them to be independent, and able to report without fear of corporations withdrawing their support. It's also just much more pleasant to listen to. I…

> I try to avoid advertising as much as possible, and it's sad that they are one more place it's invading. It's unfortunate that internet people have been falsely conditioned to believe the people who create the media we consume shouldn't be paid. Oh, but you will gladly pay for quality, ad-free content, you say? Unfortunately, based on the numbers I've seen at media companies I've freelanced for, this only works out…

> It's unfortunate that internet people have been falsely conditioned to believe the people who create the media we consume shouldn't be paid.

I don't think this is true at all. Nobody thinks musicians shouldn't be paid, but until Spotify everyone was downloading music.

> Oh, but you will gladly pay for quality, ad-free content, you say?

I would definitely pay. I just don't want to pay for every single article I read by having going through a signup flow. Usually I can't even pay for a single article because you need to get a subscription.

I would easily pay €10+ a month for a place where I can read all the articles I want from all the publishers I'm interested in. However, like in the video business, this doesn't seem feasible. So you end up with multiple subscriptions just to get the 1 piece of content a month that you want to consume from either of them.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try to avoid advertising as much as possible, and it's sad that they are one more place it's invading. It's unfortunate that internet people have been falsely conditioned to believe the people who create the media we consume shouldn't be paid. Oh, but you will gladly pay for quality, ad-free content, you say? Unfortunately, based on the numbers I've seen at media companies I've freelanced for, this only works out…

> It turns out, a vast majority of people who complain about ads will not put their money where their mouth is. Not quite. If the baseline is that ads can provide enough revenue, and you're specifically paying to remove the ads, then that's a much smaller number. He has what, two ad slots, repeated at start and end? If that's $30 CPM at two per week, that's 26 cents a month. The minimum subscription was $9.95 a month…

I'd think the apple news+ service they've started might end up being something that can go in that direction. Patreon as well, or even Spotify. I've started listening to podcasts via Spotify as the player has more fine-grained speed controls. I'm sure they could track my listens to that. letting podcast creators sign up to get paid a portion of listens would be useful, and something I'd support (maybe a $12/month price point vs $10? and split the $2 among the episodes I listen to?)

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#79
post #4

I love NPR. I'm glad they're doing well, and hope they will continue to make quality programs. But one of the major advantages which has set them apart for me is that they aren't as advertising dependent as so many of their alternatives. Avoiding ads makes it easier for them to be independent, and able to report without fear of corporations withdrawing their support. It's also just much more pleasant to listen to. I…

> I try to avoid advertising as much as possible, and it's sad that they are one more place it's invading. It's unfortunate that internet people have been falsely conditioned to believe the people who create the media we consume shouldn't be paid. Oh, but you will gladly pay for quality, ad-free content, you say? Unfortunately, based on the numbers I've seen at media companies I've freelanced for, this only works out…

This remind me of when steam tried to monetize mods and the ensuing outrage forgot to mention that some of the biggest modders (as is most popular skyrim mods) receive less than 100$ for years of work in donations.

Re: Podcast sponsorship revenue continues to fuel NPR’s financial growth

#80
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who only vaguely remembers NPR from their childhood, my primary association of NPR is with their podcasts. And those things are full of ads. So I initially found this post very confusing. I guess in the past there might have been something called NPR which did not have ads?

They always say "We don't have ads, we have underwriters". I think the difference being the sponsor has copy that the announcer will read, but they can't do all the annoying audio effects that traditional advertisers use. Personally, I don't much mind it. Gotta pay the bills somehow. Maybe depends where you are, but NPR is big here in central Iowa (iowapublicradio.org). I think it's pretty big in Minnesota as well.

It's the double standard hypocrisy that's troubling many. You're either a publicly funded medium that doesn't run on ads or you're not. Currently, my impression is constant corporate sponsorship designed to make said corporations look good with pauses to raise more money from the public. During the pauses the sponsorship ads don't run so you feel like you are the sponsor.
Post reply on HN