Dawn and Drew have over 100,000 Listeners
If you want to find out the ratings to podshows, occasionally, like in todays Dawn and Drew show, in which Drew wears a tshirt that says "I'm Bombing Again" (not untrue) the farmbound smelly downstairs couple decide to ring Dawn's Showbiz dad who's "viked" up to use a Drewism and repeating - "Are we really on the air ? You should call me when I have some material... Have you guys got over your sickness ? etc etc"
Anyway Dawn mentioned they have over 100,000 listeners. I cant wait till there are simple metrics we take for granted in the Internet, such as "deduplicated reach" by network (eg Podshow), channel (eg adult) and show (eg dawn and drew) Even geo-demo-psycho-graphic breakdowns; Podtrac have been asking (alot upfront) from podcasts and their listeners to fill out 7 page surveys : I hope this isnt just cheap/free marketing research. Online Surveys are pretty 1995 technically. Can anyone say regurgitation and the easy path (advertisers dont care too much about boring quant demo one off surveys anyway) They should just get ads in at a low cpm and trial different creative executions, then see the advertiser response doh, and write it up as a case study. Podtrac et al should prorata payments for surveys filled in eg $20 per survey for the 500 (at least) surveys that have been filled in by Keith and the Girl listeners : that would equal $10,000 which would enable Keith to podcast for another 2-3 months without having to get a crappy job and be in trouble with Chemda. Or assign their whole catalogue to Podshow, which they dont want to. Which is fare of both parties BTW. Record labels arent digital communes. But - People with passion though, sometimes get taken advantage of, and in podcasting its happening, but more I think with the research come advertising wannabe companies than podcasting players at moment. Correct me if Im wrong.
Podcasting advertising in itself is a contentious topic and a bit like banner ads on Hotwired in 1995/6 : From Cameron's Motorola ads on TPN to Adam Curry's Earthlink sponsorship. Having started in an ad agency - DDB, back in the Hotwired days + then years working on online businesses driven by corporate ad spends ever since, I must say the podcasting advertising space has played out fairly predictably in terms of audio ad formats. Its still got some ways to go, because advertisers like standardisation, simplicity and "integration" in their communications.
Brand Advertisers do not want to make lots of pieces of creative for different shows so they can "fit into the environment" of each podcast - In early client meetings they will be all jazzed. Client : "Advertising on the Ipod is the new frontier, we tried videogames, but we think the Ipod is where we can reach the right audience at the right time with the right message. And its infinite, right ? Wow, you mean we could have our own show ? Driving around in a car ? Fantastic. How many Listeners ? How much ? How do we do it ?" Once the insertion order for the ads is signed, the honeymoon is over (esp on agency/client side sorry to say) : The agency assigns the 24 or 55 yr old lowrung associate creative who edits clients latest radio ad down to 15-60 seconds and you are stuck with a trying to be alternative, edgy, "hip" but ultimately politically correct low impact neutralised message. Then the research can be used for not rebooking if client hasnt been relationally managed properly ;)
Im not being negative here : its 10 fulltime years working on exactly these types of issues : Just as the internet advertising bureau (IAB) was setup in early dotbomb days because clients did not want heaps of different type of ad formats from banners, to skyscrapers, to page takeovers etc - and every website had different specs for those. Clients couldnt do it for a very simple reason. Now the Podcasting Ad Bureau could establish specs, develop case studies, contract tracking studies, rather than have silos of research/advertising on a podcast and network level. (esp for industry stats - remember a clients success with podcasting may come from advertising on a range of podcasts not owned by one player) Is IAB involved in podcasting advertising or there needs to be a PAB !
My gut feel is we need some more technical breakthroughs and/or shows/networks with high reach - that use standardised formats. The benefit of a high rating show is it lowers the production cost per target audience impression, less reporting manhandling etc tasks. As with most new things that havent fully formed, there are some different approaches happening (by everyone but the advertiser ;) Adam Curry's listeners would like to be able to make their own ads for earthlink for example, and then use that ad as a promo for their show. The problem with this is promos are awful and should be outlawed or at least face the same test as free to air TV eg not more than 12 minutes of ads per podcast hour, of which no more than 1/3rd can be promos. Im sorta joking and not too.
The bigger problem once you've got past the media buyer, is the Group Account Director in the agency, who is managing the (Client) Marketing Director very carefully. The podcasting part is supposed to be the fun part of the client campaign. They dont want to end up having a service provider (the podcaster) do something which is illegal (like happened with some "brand" graffiti for new product launches in which agencies got in trouble) There may be a middleground where the podcast network have a production agency arm, but that is always problemmatic to be the media and the agency. Curry and Bloom's Think New Ideas (was that its name) ironically would have been formed with solving exactly these types of problems, and is the type of solution many clients will need for podcasting. (there may end up being lots of work for actors who do talkover audio work and low cost audio ads that are as automated as possible)
What is most likely to happen is like radio now : High rating shows and Networks will attract brand advertisers who will apportion 15% of their total pod'media spend to the podcasting creative, which will be enough for a few different types of audio. The interesting thing will be to see how much control a show gets in what advertising is allowed. Dawn and Drew for example have little to no advertising, but obviously with 100K+ listeners and a contract where they are paid by Podshow, and the copyright is also owned by Podshow, then I wonder who will have creative sign-off. While that outcome may be obvious, Podshow staff worked over XMAS and New Year to get the Podcast Delivery Network up, which is like Adsense meets WeblogsInc and Federated Media for Podcasting. So for example if Soccergirl signs, what happens to copyright and can she choose her advertisers etc. I believe the model that was talked about by Curry throughout 2005 was you can choose to pay for hosting costs etc or the advertising can subsidise etc : In effect a continuum. It will be interesting and what really is Podtrac doing too btw ? Anyone know, write in.
So back to Drawn and Drew, the show is almost compelling, but in a outsiders Michael Moore Trailer Park way. Marketing cares little about highbrow taste. Im all for bad lowbrow. I'm just interested in what the long term reach is likely to be of shows like Dawn and Drew in 2 years or two. It will be interesting to see how D+D go over 12 months with Guardian's Ricky Gervais Show. I must say Karl is way hilarious and I totally agree with Jeff Jarvis' view and Charlie from Union Square Ventures about picking the right performers, delivering unique content thats free and mashpingable.
Not to mention how smart Rupert Murdoch is in his $1b investment in DirectTV currently to upgrade their wireless broadband, so he can make a reality of his vision of low cost run digital independent studios, that deliver movies for $3-$4 a pop : As one of the VC bloggers said, why steal something when its $4. People will buy. Or take ads for free, ad supported slightly lower value content. Amazing to think the 1993 vision of Malone and Murdoch and the Information Superhighway is finally happening. Very interesting day.
Anyway Dawn mentioned they have over 100,000 listeners. I cant wait till there are simple metrics we take for granted in the Internet, such as "deduplicated reach" by network (eg Podshow), channel (eg adult) and show (eg dawn and drew) Even geo-demo-psycho-graphic breakdowns; Podtrac have been asking (alot upfront) from podcasts and their listeners to fill out 7 page surveys : I hope this isnt just cheap/free marketing research. Online Surveys are pretty 1995 technically. Can anyone say regurgitation and the easy path (advertisers dont care too much about boring quant demo one off surveys anyway) They should just get ads in at a low cpm and trial different creative executions, then see the advertiser response doh, and write it up as a case study. Podtrac et al should prorata payments for surveys filled in eg $20 per survey for the 500 (at least) surveys that have been filled in by Keith and the Girl listeners : that would equal $10,000 which would enable Keith to podcast for another 2-3 months without having to get a crappy job and be in trouble with Chemda. Or assign their whole catalogue to Podshow, which they dont want to. Which is fare of both parties BTW. Record labels arent digital communes. But - People with passion though, sometimes get taken advantage of, and in podcasting its happening, but more I think with the research come advertising wannabe companies than podcasting players at moment. Correct me if Im wrong.
Podcasting advertising in itself is a contentious topic and a bit like banner ads on Hotwired in 1995/6 : From Cameron's Motorola ads on TPN to Adam Curry's Earthlink sponsorship. Having started in an ad agency - DDB, back in the Hotwired days + then years working on online businesses driven by corporate ad spends ever since, I must say the podcasting advertising space has played out fairly predictably in terms of audio ad formats. Its still got some ways to go, because advertisers like standardisation, simplicity and "integration" in their communications.
Brand Advertisers do not want to make lots of pieces of creative for different shows so they can "fit into the environment" of each podcast - In early client meetings they will be all jazzed. Client : "Advertising on the Ipod is the new frontier, we tried videogames, but we think the Ipod is where we can reach the right audience at the right time with the right message. And its infinite, right ? Wow, you mean we could have our own show ? Driving around in a car ? Fantastic. How many Listeners ? How much ? How do we do it ?" Once the insertion order for the ads is signed, the honeymoon is over (esp on agency/client side sorry to say) : The agency assigns the 24 or 55 yr old lowrung associate creative who edits clients latest radio ad down to 15-60 seconds and you are stuck with a trying to be alternative, edgy, "hip" but ultimately politically correct low impact neutralised message. Then the research can be used for not rebooking if client hasnt been relationally managed properly ;)
Im not being negative here : its 10 fulltime years working on exactly these types of issues : Just as the internet advertising bureau (IAB) was setup in early dotbomb days because clients did not want heaps of different type of ad formats from banners, to skyscrapers, to page takeovers etc - and every website had different specs for those. Clients couldnt do it for a very simple reason. Now the Podcasting Ad Bureau could establish specs, develop case studies, contract tracking studies, rather than have silos of research/advertising on a podcast and network level. (esp for industry stats - remember a clients success with podcasting may come from advertising on a range of podcasts not owned by one player) Is IAB involved in podcasting advertising or there needs to be a PAB !
My gut feel is we need some more technical breakthroughs and/or shows/networks with high reach - that use standardised formats. The benefit of a high rating show is it lowers the production cost per target audience impression, less reporting manhandling etc tasks. As with most new things that havent fully formed, there are some different approaches happening (by everyone but the advertiser ;) Adam Curry's listeners would like to be able to make their own ads for earthlink for example, and then use that ad as a promo for their show. The problem with this is promos are awful and should be outlawed or at least face the same test as free to air TV eg not more than 12 minutes of ads per podcast hour, of which no more than 1/3rd can be promos. Im sorta joking and not too.
The bigger problem once you've got past the media buyer, is the Group Account Director in the agency, who is managing the (Client) Marketing Director very carefully. The podcasting part is supposed to be the fun part of the client campaign. They dont want to end up having a service provider (the podcaster) do something which is illegal (like happened with some "brand" graffiti for new product launches in which agencies got in trouble) There may be a middleground where the podcast network have a production agency arm, but that is always problemmatic to be the media and the agency. Curry and Bloom's Think New Ideas (was that its name) ironically would have been formed with solving exactly these types of problems, and is the type of solution many clients will need for podcasting. (there may end up being lots of work for actors who do talkover audio work and low cost audio ads that are as automated as possible)
What is most likely to happen is like radio now : High rating shows and Networks will attract brand advertisers who will apportion 15% of their total pod'media spend to the podcasting creative, which will be enough for a few different types of audio. The interesting thing will be to see how much control a show gets in what advertising is allowed. Dawn and Drew for example have little to no advertising, but obviously with 100K+ listeners and a contract where they are paid by Podshow, and the copyright is also owned by Podshow, then I wonder who will have creative sign-off. While that outcome may be obvious, Podshow staff worked over XMAS and New Year to get the Podcast Delivery Network up, which is like Adsense meets WeblogsInc and Federated Media for Podcasting. So for example if Soccergirl signs, what happens to copyright and can she choose her advertisers etc. I believe the model that was talked about by Curry throughout 2005 was you can choose to pay for hosting costs etc or the advertising can subsidise etc : In effect a continuum. It will be interesting and what really is Podtrac doing too btw ? Anyone know, write in.
So back to Drawn and Drew, the show is almost compelling, but in a outsiders Michael Moore Trailer Park way. Marketing cares little about highbrow taste. Im all for bad lowbrow. I'm just interested in what the long term reach is likely to be of shows like Dawn and Drew in 2 years or two. It will be interesting to see how D+D go over 12 months with Guardian's Ricky Gervais Show. I must say Karl is way hilarious and I totally agree with Jeff Jarvis' view and Charlie from Union Square Ventures about picking the right performers, delivering unique content thats free and mashpingable.
Not to mention how smart Rupert Murdoch is in his $1b investment in DirectTV currently to upgrade their wireless broadband, so he can make a reality of his vision of low cost run digital independent studios, that deliver movies for $3-$4 a pop : As one of the VC bloggers said, why steal something when its $4. People will buy. Or take ads for free, ad supported slightly lower value content. Amazing to think the 1993 vision of Malone and Murdoch and the Information Superhighway is finally happening. Very interesting day.
posted by redbarren at 12:48 AM
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