Podcasters

Podcasting has a structural problem: the feed is free by convention, the audience is loyal, and there is almost no way to charge for one thing. Everything the industry built for monetisation assumes either scale — so you need hundreds of thousands of downloads for advertising to matter — or a subscription, which asks a casual listener to commit before they know whether the bonus feed is any good.

This creates a middle path. A single uncut interview, an extended conversation, or an ad-free version of one episode becomes its own link at its own price. The main feed is untouched, so nothing about how people already listen has to change. The people who want the extra ninety minutes are usually the ones who already finish every episode, and they are the ones who will pay a few pounds for more of it.

It is not a replacement for a subscription model if you have one, and it will not convert the casual listener. It works on the assumption that a small share of a podcast audience is unusually engaged, which is true of most shows.