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Originally Posted by saillias
Podcasts have very low overhead and can work through crowdfunding. All you need is a dedicated enough fanbase to give you some money, it doesn't have to be a huge audience, which I think qualifies our local former Fan 960 hosts.
Your biggest expense is your mic, maybe office equipment in your home. You set up a patreon and set a premium tier at 3-5 dollars a month with bonus episodes that have interviews. You get 500 subs in your first month and you're already making 1.5k a month. Then you set up a youtube channel and maybe the subs pile up enough that you get ad revenue. If you're Boomer and Pinder you can absolutely get sponsors as well. Manscaped Hello Fresh etc. Without Rogers breathing down your neck. Just my thoughts.
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$1,500 a month isn't sustaining anyone, let alone 2 people plus any technical people they might have working for them.
Based on everything I've read, about 2% of your audience will actually subscribe to your Patreon. 500 Patreon subscribers would mean about 25,000 regular listeners.
In the last radio ratings, Sportsnet 960 had just under 45,000 unique listeners per day on average. Keep in mind that's anyone who was within earshot of a radio tuned to 960 for at least a minute, so the number of people who actively chose to listen to the station would be a fraction of that. The number of people who would listen to a podcast from the same people they used to listen to on the radio is going to be a fraction of those who listened on the radio.
25,000 regular listeners for a Calgary-centric sports podcast is likely heavily optimistic.
The typical podcast ads pay about $20 per thousand listeners. At 25,000 listeners, that's $500 per episode. You're not going to be able to get those kinds of deals until you've established your regular release schedule and your regular audience numbers, meaning you're likely doing it for free for a couple of months at least.
Those listener counts and ad rates can likely be increased, but it will take a lot of leg work to get it.
Doing it as a hobby to make some beer money is fine, but trying to turn it into a full-time source of income is a full-time job. The question is, is it worth it for them to do it for beer money?