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Richard Vobes asks: Should his podcast go commercial?

I've occasionally listened to Richard Vobes, a UK based podcaster who produces a daily show. In his 402nd episode, he asks whether he should go commercial in order to keep investing his time in the show. Vobes says he doesn't want to do advertising in the show.

"I don't think people want adverts in podcasts. You get that on radio. Podcast is a completely different medium, and you really don't need an advert biting into your ears."

What do you think? What has your experience been with podcasting so far?

Comments

I used to listen to pandora.com a good bit, and they faced a similar quandary. The way they'd resolved it, last I checked, was they offered advertising on their site, but the audio was ad-free. So the content is still sterling quality, but there is also some income. For example, I expect that ads for local alternative media and radio would work well off the site, maybe real estate.
I hope you're well, I miss seeing you around.
Sean Tubbs said…
The trouble with advertising is that clients want numbers. And so far, the numbers are not very high for podcasting in Central Virginia. For me to succeed, I need to continue building up partnerships and the like, and this is what I'm doing. It's a quandry!

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