‘The Pub’ #26: The business of podcasting, live from the PMDMC Conference

Ragusea, Diehn, Turner, Hoffman (Photo: Karen Everhart, Current)

There’s increasingly money to be made in podcasting these days. But not much, and drooling over the modest amount to be had is like drooling over a bowl of moldy gruel — you only do it because you’re starving.

But eat we must. So this week on The Pub, we look at the intersection of podcasting and money — how podcasters can make money to support their podcasting, maybe even themselves. And maybe the gruel won’t look so moldy by the time we’re done.

We talked to a panel of podcasting experts at the Public Media Marketing and Development Conference in Washington, D.C., and heard their thoughts about the future of podcasting as a new revenue stream for public media.

“It’s important to flip the conversation a little bit,” said Kerri Hoffman, c.o.o. at Public Radio Exchange, which distributes 13 podcasts through its Radiotopia network. “Rather than figuring out how we can monetize . . . derivative content from broadcast, the question is, ‘How can we make good content that is going to attract money?’”

And we consider: How far is too far with native advertising?

Also joining us on stage at PMDMC were Wendy Turner, v.p. for digital and technical operations at WBEZ in Chicago, and Erik Diehn, v.p. for business development at Midroll Media. This episode is a co-production with Greater Public.

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We welcome your feedback on the show: You can reach me at [email protected] or @aragusea on Twitter; my supervising producer at Current, Mike Janssen, is at [email protected]; and you can contact Current generally at [email protected] or @currentpubmedia on Twitter.

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Adam Ragusea hosts Current’s weekly podcast The Pub and is a journalist in residence and visiting assistant professor at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.