AliceFraser
patreon
Podfest Scoop and subscriber questions
🕑 Added 2017-10-09 21:37:40 +0000 UTC So I’ve just finished up my time at the LA Podcast Festival. It was a fascinating and excellent weekend, at the ridiculously pretty Millenium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.The second-last event of the festival was a talk given by the organisers about the difficulties involved in previous years.
Coming up to the festival there had been a lot of talk about the fact that it was likely to be the last LA Podfest. Last year’s Festival had turned out to be both a fantastic fun event and a brutal financial loss for the organisers, who had to put up a significant amount of their own money to get it over the line, with sponsors dropping out at the last minute and a more unpleasant bit of commercial skulduggery happening in the background.
In the panel they named names and numbers, which was fascinating and unusual. Normally, people in an industry are wary of alienating big game players. But Dave Anthony, certainly, has made a name (and some enemies) for himself over the years by being a brutally straight talker, and Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini were also willing to talk openly both about the financial and political backstory to the podcast festival’s rise, fall and potential future. I’m not sure if they’ll publish the recording of that panel, but the broad lines of the story they drew of last year ran thus:
Larger media conglomerates, smelling the success and reach of podcasts had moved in on the Festival game, playing the old Amazon/Starbucks trick of throwing money into a loss-leader. More commercial Festivals, run like traditional media events end up undercutting the smaller, more independent events.
This came with a perfect storm of all major sponsors tightening their belts in response to (among other things) America’s current financial and political climate.
But to put sponsors aside, I want to return to the competition element, the emergence of bigger (inorganic) festivals funded by larger old media conglomerates.
This is one of the interesting things about capitalism, because on one hand, that’s fair game. According to free market theory, competition leads to better outcomes for the consumer. If everyone were on an equal footing, it would definitely be fair game. But increasingly, (particularly in America) large corporations are merging into larger corporations, and in more and more markets, they squash or absorb smaller competitors until many border on market monopolies - or oligopolies, with only a few major players who can set their own standards and name their own price.
Podcasts have been immune to this for a long while, in part because they began as more or less profitless enterprises - individual relationships between listeners and creators, with no barrier to entry, and no real competition. There’s a camaraderie among podcasters of the “rising tide lifts all boats” type.
That looks like it’s in the process of changing, as money and audiences grow. The big ships have come to... port? (I’m not sure I should stay on board this metaphor). It’ll be interesting to see how it goes. Certainly the live events side of things is coming under increasing pressure to haul in big acts as money makers, and by definition, to bring in people with existing market share - celebrities, old media names and formats. Big money likes a sure thing. Which is to say, broad, bland or already established.
The more pressure there is to fit in with a larger market demographic, the less personal and intimate podcasting will become.
I hope podcasting remains at least in part immune to the lure of gatekeepers, curators and market-pleasing pasteurisation. I met a guy at the Podfest who is doing a fictional show about a small town with a weirdly large population of puppeteers and ventriloquists. That is definitely the kind of thing that no marketing maven, advertiser or focus group committee ought to have a say in. That should remain a pure stream of niche delight between them and their audience.
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Speaking of focus groups, I also went to a really interesting panel on Patreon, as part of the Pro’s panel segment of the festival, and it reminded me of what a great thing this is - as a way around the need to please a middle-man or a projected potential audience.
I do what I think is good, and for some delightful reason, you exist, who also find it good. Thankyou for that, it means a lot. (I assume. If you’re hate-sponsoring me, I mean... okay? But I can imagine better revenges).
In commercial television writing in Australia, they call the imaginary audience member “Betty from Blacktown”, and according to the way most TV people write for her, she’s kind of an idiot. This is why a lot of mainstream Television is not hugely interesting.
This patreon thing lets me do my podcast, articles and other work without having to worry about what an imaginary audience wants.
I wanted to ask you guys what you’d like to see more or less of from me on here. What stuff would you like to get more of on the $1, $5, $15 levels? All that.
Let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.
Comments
Joe
Hi Alice Hope you are keeping well. As you provide and put so much work into the cast It seems greedy to expect rewards. Also, I don’t want to be ungrateful for what you already do. Thinking of rewards, I’m in the mind of wanting the time/money needed to be reinvest into the cast, as I find it really rewarding seeing your audience and membership grow. Go Team Alice Etc That aside some ideas I have are as followed. • What would be useful is perhaps a one off Alibi that I could use, not saying that I do need one but perhaps if I did maybe. Perhaps not. • Seeing how successful you have been in changing people’s perception of flamingos you could offer a request animal take down. Starting with squirrels, bastard tree burglars mocking me. On a more serious note. • I don’t know if you could re structure your episodes. With a regular episode for the podcast subscribers and an extended version for the patrons’. Or even short bonus material for anything you wanted to add that wasn’t discussed in the episode to sum up. • Perhaps you could give some pre/post reading/research to you patrons so we can gen up on your upcoming guest/topic. Or having some follow up links and recommends on the guest/topics. • I would be interested in some behind the scenes working of how you put together the cast. How why you decided to cover the guest/topic. • How about some kind of once a month “Ask Alice” Patron q&a. Or some kind of listener advice segment. • Alice “Independent, neutral” mediator decides to settle disputes members have with whoever. Obviously between you and me you would decide in favour of your patrons. • The mighty Alice “the rock” Fraser recommends. Other creators to follow or podcasts, book, music, tea of the month etc. Perhaps some type of review. • Patron voting rights on various directions for TWA. What topics or guest etc. Not sure how fair that would be on the non-patrons’ fans but could be idea in their somewhere. • I’m not sure how you go about this but growing your merchandise. Tea shirts, tea towels, posters, mugs, coasters, socks, note pads, pens and bags. You could offer items as a sign-up gift rather than monthly demands. Or as you have done in the past discount codes for such mech. Perhaps the Zaltman from your sister show could help. • Perhaps digital audio or video clips. short ten sec recording requests, you could make that your members could send to their friends or family. A happy birthday or Hello Dad. Or for example you could record “Sorry Amanda but Joe is right and you are wrong “. Even with added jingle. Sorry that was oddly specific. Would also have the added bonus of promoting the show. • Like other Alice Army comrades have commented on your post. Video would be great as well. Whether that would just be bonus material for the patrons, or we get the video and the podcast foot soldiers get the audio. • Some of the other creators on Patreon I follow have switched to a member access website. So that they get more of a percentage of the donations and can structure a paid video access and re occurring member fees. I don’t know if you know Chris Coltrane of Lolitics as an example. He has a much smaller member base so I don’t know how he does this on a much smaller budget. You have to take into account he is not a global All start like yourself so has more time to do this. I’m sure I could get him to drop you some tech advice direct or if you like I could ask him on your behalf. Or I could send you some examples of how he has structured his members fee etc. Just out of interest do you know roughly how much you would need for you to do what Dean suggested. Or is just a question of man power. If it’s not an insane amount I could look into helping you some short-term funding to do some kind of pilots. Sorry if this was too much for comments section. All Best Joe
Not super ambitious. I’d need to find someone who would be willing to help me edit it, if it were to be of any quality and I don’t have a lot of money to throw around, but I’ve been wanting to film video content for aaages.
Dean
At this point, how ambitious would some sort of semi regular video content be? Whether it be a Teacast with a guest on a park bench or on the lawn of a botanical garden or some stream of consciousness video content involving yourself...and a flamingo?
