Making Tech Headlines · Page 7
Spotify Lets Podcasts Put a Velvet Rope Around the Bonus Episode
· New York time
Spotify has launched paid podcast memberships that let creators offer benefits including ad-free listening, early access and bonus content while keeping 90 percent of the revenue. The offering gives podcasters another way to earn directly from listeners rather than relying only on the audience available to advertisers. For creators, a membership can connect income to the people who value a show most. It also creates a continuing obligation to make the benefits feel worthwhile. A bonus episode is easier to promise than a sustainable schedule of bonus episodes. Listeners face the familiar subscription question in a new corner of the phone: how many individually reasonable memberships fit into one collectively unreasonable monthly total? Affection for a host is real, but so is arithmetic. The 90 percent revenue share is an important term, though it does not by itself tell every creator what the program will earn. Audience size, participation and the effort required to produce perks still matter. The practical appeal is choice on both sides. The comic consequence is that a medium once associated with an endless supply of free conversation now offers early access to the conversation, extra conversation and a quieter version of the conversation.
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