September 5, 2025 • 15 mins
Longtime musician, Jeremiah Bowser, recently shared his streaming revenue for the month of August: $8.63 for 3,600 plays. That’s less than what he used to make selling a single CD at a live show. His story sparked a bigger conversation: are podcast creators heading toward the same trap musicians face in the streaming era?
In this episode, we compare the realities of music streaming and podcast downloads, break down who actually makes money (from Taylor Swift to indie acts), and reflect on what this means for podcasters. Should monetization be the goal, or just a cherry on top of a passion project?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin (00:00):
So a friend of mine.
He's a musician.
He's been a musician for aslong as I've known him, so 20
plus years.
His name is Jeremiah Bowser.
If you want to look him upgreat musician has tons of CDs.
Probably has recorded eight to10 CDs.
I don't know a lot of music overhis career and I thought it was
interesting.
He decided to share somerevenue stats with his fans.
The takeaway was that hisstreaming totals for August he
(00:29):
made $8.63 across all thestreaming platforms for his
music, all the songs combinedWow.
And it got me thinking, becausewe talk to podcasters a lot and
podcasters all the time aretalking about how they can make
money podcasting.
Where Jeremiah has landed isthat in his follow-up he said I
would make more selling one CDthan I do on 3,600 streams.
The music business is a businessonly for the top few and for
(00:50):
the rest of us it's purely apassion project, which is
something we talk about all thetime in podcasting.
Like, you should be podcastingIf you love podcasting, if it's
a passion project for you, youshouldn't go into it if you
desire to make money.
But I've never sort ofconnected the dots or thought
about it from the musician sideas well.
There's also hundreds ofthousands of people who probably
(01:11):
make music like Jeremiah does,who do it for the love of making
the music.
They don't actually make a lotof money on it.
Anyway, I thought it'd beinteresting for us to talk
about.
What do you guys think?
Alban (01:20):
I like it because there's this temptation in podcasting
like, oh, I'm getting into it soI can quit my day job and I can
do this full time.
This is going to be my bigbreakout.
I don't think that temptation'sthere for most people with
music.
I think mostly what you have issomeone who falls in love with
music and they're mostly playingcovers in the beginning and
(01:40):
they start making their ownmusic and they're really
enjoying it and they book a showand they go and play publicly
and then if they decide to gofull time into it, it's because
I know this is unlikely tosucceed, but I love it so much I
might move to Nashville and youknow, and try to get a record
deal and maybe a healthier wayto think about it is like even
in music, the likelihood ofsuccess is so low.
(02:03):
Podcasting may end up beingsimilar where it's yeah, most
people are just going to enjoyit and unless you're enjoying it
in the way that a musician whoplays covers and maybe does one
show every three months, unlessyou enjoy it like they enjoy it,
it may not be the right fit foryou.
Kevin (02:22):
I was honing in on the part where he said the music
business is only a business forthe top few, and the rest of us
do it as a purely passionproject.
Jordan (02:30):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:30):
And so I fired up my GPT and I went to work so I started
punching in some numbers to tryto get who the top artist was,
who was making the most instreaming, sort of a middle of
the rung.
And that's really hard to finda middle of the rung because
once you kind of go out of likethe top 10%, five to 10% of
artists that you've heard fromthe numbers drop off
(02:51):
significantly.
So what really?
What I'm saying is, like thetop person, who happens to be,
according to GPT anyway, likeTaylor Swift, seems to be making
the most off of the streamingrevenue, which is ironic because
she withheld her music fromSpotify for a long time.
But anyway, she's in there now.
She seems to be making themost.
And then, like if you did alist of the top 500, the number
500 band that I found was a bandcalled Flip Turn, which I've
(03:11):
heard of my kids.
Listen to them.
Alban (03:12):
I don't listen to them that much, but I've heard of
them.
Kevin (03:22):
Sounds like a skateboarding trick.
They're actually a really greatband, anyway, but they're not
doing stadiums, okay.
And then I have Jeremiah Bowseras, like an indie, he's in the
you know the 200,000, 300,500,000 musician group.
There's a bunch of them, okay.
So Taylor Swift makingsomewhere between 16 to 25
(03:46):
million let's just call it $20million a month in streaming
revenue alone alone.
No merch, no endorsement deals,no concerts, none of that other
revenue that she's making, juststreaming revenue alone.
Around $20 million a month.
Flip turn this is the band thatconsistently, two or three times
a week, is selling outsomewhere between $5,000 and
$10,000 arenas.
They are doing about 100million streams a month and
they're making about $400,000off of that.
I think that's just theirpercentage.
That goes to their label.
I actually don't know how muchof that that they get, but I
(04:08):
think their label is makingabout $400,000 off of their
music.
Okay.
And then you have JeremiahBowser, which in August he made
$8, but he said sometimes it'smore, sometimes it's less.
It can be up to like $14.
So somewhere between eight and$14 a month.
The disparity there is.
Exactly what he's pointing outis like you can't be a musician,
especially like in the, in thecurrent world of streaming
(04:31):
services.
I think there used to be thisworld where he would go and book
a gig and maybe he gets ahundred or 200 people there.
He plays a lot of.
He plays Christian music, so hegets.
He does a lot of shows atchurches and stuff like that and
I think he would set up a tableafterward and sell CDs and he'd
sell the CDs for 20 bucks a popand he'd make you know 12 to
$14 of that would be profit onthat CD and he'd sell a hundred
(04:53):
of them a night can't do thatanymore because his music is on
Spotify and Apple music andYouTube music, whatever all the
platforms are.
So nobody wants to buy the CDsanymore.
So really that revenue streamis gone for him and all he can
do to make money is the pricethat he gets paid for the gig
and streaming revenue, and thestreaming revenue is less than
one CD.
(05:13):
It just got me thinking, likethe amount of time, effort,
energy that he puts into this,it only pays off if he's, you
know, if he's getting somethingout of it, and he does.
He loves creating music, heloves being a musician, he's
passionate about it.
It gives him a lot of life tobe able to pursue this, but he
can't do it as a career.
And so many podcasters I thinkwe have had an unhealthy
(05:34):
relationship with the idea ofmonetizing a podcast.
Jordan (05:37):
Yeah.
Kevin (05:38):
There are going to be the top performers.
You know, like, who's theequivalent to Taylor Swift in
the podcasting world?
Well, it's Joe Rogan.
Now Taylor Swift is a wholenother level Like she's making
$20 million a month just onstream.
Jordan (05:49):
Actually, I think Taylor Swift is the Taylor Swift of
podcasting, since she broke aworld record.
Kevin (05:57):
But there are people at the very tippy top of podcasting
who are making really goodmoney, and then there's probably
another 500 to 1,000 who aremaking a living.
And then there's the rest ofthe world.
Of the 400,000 podcasts thatpublish on a regular basis and
are considered active, I wouldventure to say that 99% of those
(06:18):
they don't make their moneyback.
They spend more on their hobbythan they recoup and I'm just
wondering do we have anunhealthy relationship with it,
like the fact that we putmonetization tools inside of
Buzzsprout?
Is that a good thing or a badthing?
Is that feeding this unhealthyrelationship with something that
should be a passion project?
Or is it okay if somebody'slike no, if I just make $5 a
month on my podcast that'sbetter than nothing.
Jordan (06:44):
I'm happy with that.
I don't think it's like amutually exclusive sort of
thing, like if I think aboutsomeone who loves needlepoint
and maybe during the summersthey go and sell their
needlepoint at the localfarmer's market because they
want to share whatever theirhobby is with other people and
maybe recoup some of the moneyand you know they can buy more
needle pointing stuff, right,it's one of those things where
it just supports your ability tohave a passion project,
(07:06):
especially, especially in thiseconomy.
You know it's expensive to doall this stuff and so I don't I
don't see that there's anunhealthy level of monetization.
I don't.
I think that kind of thenarrative or the culture around
monetization can be unhealthy inthe way that advertisers are
perpetuating the story ofmonetization, and I think that
(07:28):
it's one of those things wherepeople are just willing to throw
programmatic ads haphazardlyinto their episodes just for the
sake of monetizing, regardlessof if it degrades the quality of
their podcast.
I think that's where it startsgetting into the unhealthy
territory.
Alban (07:43):
To play devil's advocate.
I could see an argument, kevin,for a company like Buzzsprout,
not Megaphone, like we'reworking with indie podcasters
almost exclusively.
Megaphone is the opposite.
Acast is the opposite.
They're working primarily withreally big podcasts that are
trying to do big deals andthey're selling a ton of ads For
(08:05):
us to put in monetization IntoBuzzsprout and have it be one of
these main tabs.
It almost feels a little bitlike If Jordan's needlepoint
kits Came with a thing that saidhey, three steps to selling
your needle point for profit atthe local farmer's market.
Like she knows she could dothat.
But it may not be the healthiestthing when you first start to
(08:28):
start seeing that tab right offthe bat, because that tab
implies a lot of people areclicking on this tab and they
might feel like, hey, maybe, uh,maybe we're making a lot of
money over here.
But if they knew that mostpodcasters are making what I'll
call Jeremiah Bowser money like$7, $8 a month, and even when
(08:49):
they're doing well, you may endup going oh, I need to reframe
this.
This is a hobby, this issomething I love.
I'm sharing a message with theworld.
I'm unlikely to turn this intoa full-time gig and just it's.
You know from the beginning therelationship could be healthier,
that if it turns into somethingbigger and you make money,
(09:10):
that's really cool, but 99% ofthe time you expect it won't
work out that way.
I mean, there's just thisperiod really it felt like 2018
to 2022, where everyconversation at like conferences
would be around how do I makethe most money, and I felt like
I was always the one who had tobreak it to people.
You're probably it's not goingto.
It seems like it's improved alittle bit, but it's a little
(09:34):
bit surprising, I guess, that somany people still kind of come
into it thinking like this isprobably going to pay off.
Jordan (09:39):
Yeah.
Kevin (09:40):
You know, trying to make this in my mind, I was trying to
make it apples to applesbetween like a music stream and
a podcast download and I wasthinking, if Jeremiah, he does
3,600 streams for last month inthe podcasting world, that would
be a really successful show.
We would put that in the top 5%of all Buzzsprout podcasts that
do that.
And then I was trying toconnect, like how much talent
(10:02):
you have to have to be able todo this.
As a musician Like he spentyears learning how to play his
instruments.
Well, he's spent thousands ofdollars buying very expensive
instruments and recordingequipment.
He's done talent searches totry to find the right musicians
to accompany him on songs.
Then thousands of dollars torent recording space to be able
to record songs, to be able to,you know, put them together
(10:24):
again, originally as in CDformat, but now you're just
publishing them to the differentstreaming platforms.
So he's just invested thousandsand thousands of dollars,
hundreds, probably thousands ofhours and honing his craft,
learning how to write songs thatpeople enjoy.
And I was trying to comparethat to like who am I as a
podcaster who, just you know,one day grabbed a microphone and
(10:46):
convinced Alvin that we shouldstart doing a show?
And then we're like okay,buzzcast is born, like in our
first episodes were terrible andwe've gotten a little bit
better over the years, but thetalent level was not equal and
the investment was not equal inany way and it almost seems like
it's a lot easier in some waysto make money as a podcaster
(11:06):
than it is as a musician.
Yes, shockingly right that'sthat should be shocking.
Alban (11:11):
If we do the math, so 3,600 streams.
Let's just use that number asdownloads.
That came out to be eight, 63.
Okay.
Kevin (11:21):
Yeah, you're trying to get like a CPM on this, yeah, so
$3,600,000.
Alban (11:27):
Multiply that by, let's say, you got three ads at $15
CPM.
So good, but not like top-notchCPM.
Jordan (11:35):
Yeah.
Alban (11:36):
That's $162 a month yeah.
Kevin (11:39):
You could probably cut that in half.
Let's just say you're usingprogrammatic or something.
Jordan (11:43):
Yeah, it's going to be like seven bucks.
Alban (11:44):
Right.
So programmatic, where we'reselling them for $7.
We're only putting in threeads.
Yeah, now we're looking at $81.
I mean, that's 10 times as muchas music.
That's actually kind of crazy.
Jordan (11:57):
Yeah.
Alban (11:57):
Yeah, I mean probably even to get the for Jeremiah to
make that money.
The level of quality is prettydang high, right, so maybe?
Wait, am I making the oppositepoint?
Then everyone needs to bemonetized in their podcast.
People who do music should quitand really need to jump into
making shows.
Kevin (12:13):
Well, we know it's just not realistic.
Like, in order for a podcasterwho's doing 3,600 downloads a
month to be able to get aprogrammatic deal where they're
getting anything more than $5CPM is really difficult.
And then you have no controlover the ads and of course,
there's the consistency withthose ads filling every month.
It's actually going to end upbeing less than $20 at the end
(12:33):
of the day.
That's really what's going tobe in the podcasting world, but
it's still just as much or morethan a musician who has massive
amounts of talent and skill andhas invested tens, or 20, 30,
you know, thousands andthousands of dollars over years
to get their craft to where theycan actually produce songs that
are on these streamingplatforms in the first place.
So I don't know where I landed.
(12:54):
I landed somewhere in between.
Podcasters have an unfairadvantage if they want to make a
little bit of money on theircraft, versus musicians.
Musicians, it's a much biggerhill to climb and I also landed
in this place of like it's thewrong mindset to have in the
first place.
Like Jeremiah has landed inthis very healthy place of you
do it for the passion and forthe love of of doing what you're
(13:14):
doing and hoping that yourmessage and your music is
reaching people and moving themin the ways that you want to
connect with them.
That's why you do it, and ifthere's eight bucks at the end
of the month, then that's acherry on top of the sundae, but
that can't be the motivator.
Jordan (13:28):
Yeah, it's so funny because I think when I looked at
his posts, what immediatelycame to my mind, instead of it
just being like a passionproject kind of thing, was
almost like it feels like themusic industry and like the ad
and royalty system of the musicindustry is almost like a
(13:48):
cautionary tale for podcasting,where if you're not like really
intentional about how yousupport your craft, then it can
degrade into this thing whereyou're getting like point
zero007 cents per download orplay.
And so I feel like there'sopportunity for indie musicians
to, instead of just relying onlike royalty pooling percentages
(14:14):
to make money from fan supportor from, you know, sites like
True Fans who are trying to dothe value for value system.
So I think that that might be abetter future for independent
musicians and for podcasters tonot rely so heavily on these
programmatic ads that are prettyunreliable.
Kevin (14:34):
And maybe there's an opportunity for musicians to
learn from podcasters Like maybenext time Jeremiah Bowser books
a gig at the local venue andhas 200 people show up to listen
to his music, maybe he shouldplay a couple songs and then
pause and tell people about hisnew Casper mattress and how
rested he is.
Alban (14:53):
If you think I look great tonight, it's because I slept
on an amazing Casper mattress.
Use promo code Jeremiah Bowserto get $8.73 off your next
purchase.
Jordan (15:04):
Oh man, why can I actually picture this happening
in the future?
Sponsored concerts.
Alban (15:11):
This is what we need, Kevin.
Great, great point.
Jordan (15:15):
I guess this is a good segue, because musicians have
fans and next episode we'regoing to be talking about how to
turn your listeners into superfans.
So if you have any comments orquestions about you know,
turning listeners into superfans, or if you are a super fan
of a podcast maybe you can tellus why you're a super fan of a
podcast Go ahead and tap theTexas show link in the show
(15:37):
notes and we will try toincorporate it in our next
episode.
So until next time, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.
So a friend of mine.
He's a musician.
He's been a musician for aslong as I've known him, so 20
plus years.
His name is Jeremiah Bowser.
If you want to look him upgreat musician has tons of CDs.
Probably has recorded eight to10 CDs.
I don't know a lot of music overhis career and I thought it was
interesting.
He decided to share somerevenue stats with his fans.
The takeaway was that hisstreaming totals for August he
(00:29):
made $8.63 across all thestreaming platforms for his
music, all the songs combinedWow.
And it got me thinking, becausewe talk to podcasters a lot and
podcasters all the time aretalking about how they can make
money podcasting.
Where Jeremiah has landed isthat in his follow-up he said I
would make more selling one CDthan I do on 3,600 streams.
The music business is a businessonly for the top few and for
(00:50):
the rest of us it's purely apassion project, which is
something we talk about all thetime in podcasting.
Like, you should be podcastingIf you love podcasting, if it's
a passion project for you, youshouldn't go into it if you
desire to make money.
But I've never sort ofconnected the dots or thought
about it from the musician sideas well.
There's also hundreds ofthousands of people who probably
(01:11):
make music like Jeremiah does,who do it for the love of making
the music.
They don't actually make a lotof money on it.
Anyway, I thought it'd beinteresting for us to talk
about.
What do you guys think?
Alban (01:20):
I like it because there's this temptation in podcasting
like, oh, I'm getting into it soI can quit my day job and I can
do this full time.
This is going to be my bigbreakout.
I don't think that temptation'sthere for most people with
music.
I think mostly what you have issomeone who falls in love with
music and they're mostly playingcovers in the beginning and
(01:40):
they start making their ownmusic and they're really
enjoying it and they book a showand they go and play publicly
and then if they decide to gofull time into it, it's because
I know this is unlikely tosucceed, but I love it so much I
might move to Nashville and youknow, and try to get a record
deal and maybe a healthier wayto think about it is like even
in music, the likelihood ofsuccess is so low.
(02:03):
Podcasting may end up beingsimilar where it's yeah, most
people are just going to enjoyit and unless you're enjoying it
in the way that a musician whoplays covers and maybe does one
show every three months, unlessyou enjoy it like they enjoy it,
it may not be the right fit foryou.
Kevin (02:22):
I was honing in on the part where he said the music
business is only a business forthe top few, and the rest of us
do it as a purely passionproject.
Jordan (02:30):
Yeah.
Kevin (02:30):
And so I fired up my GPT and I went to work so I started
punching in some numbers to tryto get who the top artist was,
who was making the most instreaming, sort of a middle of
the rung.
And that's really hard to finda middle of the rung because
once you kind of go out of likethe top 10%, five to 10% of
artists that you've heard fromthe numbers drop off
(02:51):
significantly.
So what really?
What I'm saying is, like thetop person, who happens to be,
according to GPT anyway, likeTaylor Swift, seems to be making
the most off of the streamingrevenue, which is ironic because
she withheld her music fromSpotify for a long time.
But anyway, she's in there now.
She seems to be making themost.
And then, like if you did alist of the top 500, the number
500 band that I found was a bandcalled Flip Turn, which I've
(03:11):
heard of my kids.
Listen to them.
Alban (03:12):
I don't listen to them that much, but I've heard of
them.
Kevin (03:22):
Sounds like a skateboarding trick.
They're actually a really greatband, anyway, but they're not
doing stadiums, okay.
And then I have Jeremiah Bowseras, like an indie, he's in the
you know the 200,000, 300,500,000 musician group.
There's a bunch of them, okay.
So Taylor Swift makingsomewhere between 16 to 25
(03:46):
million let's just call it $20million a month in streaming
revenue alone alone.
No merch, no endorsement deals,no concerts, none of that other
revenue that she's making, juststreaming revenue alone.
Around $20 million a month.
Flip turn this is the band thatconsistently, two or three times
a week, is selling outsomewhere between $5,000 and
$10,000 arenas.
They are doing about 100million streams a month and
they're making about $400,000off of that.
I think that's just theirpercentage.
That goes to their label.
I actually don't know how muchof that that they get, but I
(04:08):
think their label is makingabout $400,000 off of their
music.
Okay.
And then you have JeremiahBowser, which in August he made
$8, but he said sometimes it'smore, sometimes it's less.
It can be up to like $14.
So somewhere between eight and$14 a month.
The disparity there is.
Exactly what he's pointing outis like you can't be a musician,
especially like in the, in thecurrent world of streaming
(04:31):
services.
I think there used to be thisworld where he would go and book
a gig and maybe he gets ahundred or 200 people there.
He plays a lot of.
He plays Christian music, so hegets.
He does a lot of shows atchurches and stuff like that and
I think he would set up a tableafterward and sell CDs and he'd
sell the CDs for 20 bucks a popand he'd make you know 12 to
$14 of that would be profit onthat CD and he'd sell a hundred
(04:53):
of them a night can't do thatanymore because his music is on
Spotify and Apple music andYouTube music, whatever all the
platforms are.
So nobody wants to buy the CDsanymore.
So really that revenue streamis gone for him and all he can
do to make money is the pricethat he gets paid for the gig
and streaming revenue, and thestreaming revenue is less than
one CD.
(05:13):
It just got me thinking, likethe amount of time, effort,
energy that he puts into this,it only pays off if he's, you
know, if he's getting somethingout of it, and he does.
He loves creating music, heloves being a musician, he's
passionate about it.
It gives him a lot of life tobe able to pursue this, but he
can't do it as a career.
And so many podcasters I thinkwe have had an unhealthy
(05:34):
relationship with the idea ofmonetizing a podcast.
Jordan (05:37):
Yeah.
Kevin (05:38):
There are going to be the top performers.
You know, like, who's theequivalent to Taylor Swift in
the podcasting world?
Well, it's Joe Rogan.
Now Taylor Swift is a wholenother level Like she's making
$20 million a month just onstream.
Jordan (05:49):
Actually, I think Taylor Swift is the Taylor Swift of
podcasting, since she broke aworld record.
Kevin (05:57):
But there are people at the very tippy top of podcasting
who are making really goodmoney, and then there's probably
another 500 to 1,000 who aremaking a living.
And then there's the rest ofthe world.
Of the 400,000 podcasts thatpublish on a regular basis and
are considered active, I wouldventure to say that 99% of those
(06:18):
they don't make their moneyback.
They spend more on their hobbythan they recoup and I'm just
wondering do we have anunhealthy relationship with it,
like the fact that we putmonetization tools inside of
Buzzsprout?
Is that a good thing or a badthing?
Is that feeding this unhealthyrelationship with something that
should be a passion project?
Or is it okay if somebody'slike no, if I just make $5 a
month on my podcast that'sbetter than nothing.
Jordan (06:44):
I'm happy with that.
I don't think it's like amutually exclusive sort of
thing, like if I think aboutsomeone who loves needlepoint
and maybe during the summersthey go and sell their
needlepoint at the localfarmer's market because they
want to share whatever theirhobby is with other people and
maybe recoup some of the moneyand you know they can buy more
needle pointing stuff, right,it's one of those things where
it just supports your ability tohave a passion project,
(07:06):
especially, especially in thiseconomy.
You know it's expensive to doall this stuff and so I don't I
don't see that there's anunhealthy level of monetization.
I don't.
I think that kind of thenarrative or the culture around
monetization can be unhealthy inthe way that advertisers are
perpetuating the story ofmonetization, and I think that
(07:28):
it's one of those things wherepeople are just willing to throw
programmatic ads haphazardlyinto their episodes just for the
sake of monetizing, regardlessof if it degrades the quality of
their podcast.
I think that's where it startsgetting into the unhealthy
territory.
Alban (07:43):
To play devil's advocate.
I could see an argument, kevin,for a company like Buzzsprout,
not Megaphone, like we'reworking with indie podcasters
almost exclusively.
Megaphone is the opposite.
Acast is the opposite.
They're working primarily withreally big podcasts that are
trying to do big deals andthey're selling a ton of ads For
(08:05):
us to put in monetization IntoBuzzsprout and have it be one of
these main tabs.
It almost feels a little bitlike If Jordan's needlepoint
kits Came with a thing that saidhey, three steps to selling
your needle point for profit atthe local farmer's market.
Like she knows she could dothat.
But it may not be the healthiestthing when you first start to
(08:28):
start seeing that tab right offthe bat, because that tab
implies a lot of people areclicking on this tab and they
might feel like, hey, maybe, uh,maybe we're making a lot of
money over here.
But if they knew that mostpodcasters are making what I'll
call Jeremiah Bowser money like$7, $8 a month, and even when
(08:49):
they're doing well, you may endup going oh, I need to reframe
this.
This is a hobby, this issomething I love.
I'm sharing a message with theworld.
I'm unlikely to turn this intoa full-time gig and just it's.
You know from the beginning therelationship could be healthier,
that if it turns into somethingbigger and you make money,
(09:10):
that's really cool, but 99% ofthe time you expect it won't
work out that way.
I mean, there's just thisperiod really it felt like 2018
to 2022, where everyconversation at like conferences
would be around how do I makethe most money, and I felt like
I was always the one who had tobreak it to people.
You're probably it's not goingto.
It seems like it's improved alittle bit, but it's a little
(09:34):
bit surprising, I guess, that somany people still kind of come
into it thinking like this isprobably going to pay off.
Jordan (09:39):
Yeah.
Kevin (09:40):
You know, trying to make this in my mind, I was trying to
make it apples to applesbetween like a music stream and
a podcast download and I wasthinking, if Jeremiah, he does
3,600 streams for last month inthe podcasting world, that would
be a really successful show.
We would put that in the top 5%of all Buzzsprout podcasts that
do that.
And then I was trying toconnect, like how much talent
(10:02):
you have to have to be able todo this.
As a musician Like he spentyears learning how to play his
instruments.
Well, he's spent thousands ofdollars buying very expensive
instruments and recordingequipment.
He's done talent searches totry to find the right musicians
to accompany him on songs.
Then thousands of dollars torent recording space to be able
to record songs, to be able to,you know, put them together
(10:24):
again, originally as in CDformat, but now you're just
publishing them to the differentstreaming platforms.
So he's just invested thousandsand thousands of dollars,
hundreds, probably thousands ofhours and honing his craft,
learning how to write songs thatpeople enjoy.
And I was trying to comparethat to like who am I as a
podcaster who, just you know,one day grabbed a microphone and
(10:46):
convinced Alvin that we shouldstart doing a show?
And then we're like okay,buzzcast is born, like in our
first episodes were terrible andwe've gotten a little bit
better over the years, but thetalent level was not equal and
the investment was not equal inany way and it almost seems like
it's a lot easier in some waysto make money as a podcaster
(11:06):
than it is as a musician.
Yes, shockingly right that'sthat should be shocking.
Alban (11:11):
If we do the math, so 3,600 streams.
Let's just use that number asdownloads.
That came out to be eight, 63.
Okay.
Kevin (11:21):
Yeah, you're trying to get like a CPM on this, yeah, so
$3,600,000.
Alban (11:27):
Multiply that by, let's say, you got three ads at $15
CPM.
So good, but not like top-notchCPM.
Jordan (11:35):
Yeah.
Alban (11:36):
That's $162 a month yeah.
Kevin (11:39):
You could probably cut that in half.
Let's just say you're usingprogrammatic or something.
Jordan (11:43):
Yeah, it's going to be like seven bucks.
Alban (11:44):
Right.
So programmatic, where we'reselling them for $7.
We're only putting in threeads.
Yeah, now we're looking at $81.
I mean, that's 10 times as muchas music.
That's actually kind of crazy.
Jordan (11:57):
Yeah.
Alban (11:57):
Yeah, I mean probably even to get the for Jeremiah to
make that money.
The level of quality is prettydang high, right, so maybe?
Wait, am I making the oppositepoint?
Then everyone needs to bemonetized in their podcast.
People who do music should quitand really need to jump into
making shows.
Kevin (12:13):
Well, we know it's just not realistic.
Like, in order for a podcasterwho's doing 3,600 downloads a
month to be able to get aprogrammatic deal where they're
getting anything more than $5CPM is really difficult.
And then you have no controlover the ads and of course,
there's the consistency withthose ads filling every month.
It's actually going to end upbeing less than $20 at the end
(12:33):
of the day.
That's really what's going tobe in the podcasting world, but
it's still just as much or morethan a musician who has massive
amounts of talent and skill andhas invested tens, or 20, 30,
you know, thousands andthousands of dollars over years
to get their craft to where theycan actually produce songs that
are on these streamingplatforms in the first place.
So I don't know where I landed.
(12:54):
I landed somewhere in between.
Podcasters have an unfairadvantage if they want to make a
little bit of money on theircraft, versus musicians.
Musicians, it's a much biggerhill to climb and I also landed
in this place of like it's thewrong mindset to have in the
first place.
Like Jeremiah has landed inthis very healthy place of you
do it for the passion and forthe love of of doing what you're
(13:14):
doing and hoping that yourmessage and your music is
reaching people and moving themin the ways that you want to
connect with them.
That's why you do it, and ifthere's eight bucks at the end
of the month, then that's acherry on top of the sundae, but
that can't be the motivator.
Jordan (13:28):
Yeah, it's so funny because I think when I looked at
his posts, what immediatelycame to my mind, instead of it
just being like a passionproject kind of thing, was
almost like it feels like themusic industry and like the ad
and royalty system of the musicindustry is almost like a
(13:48):
cautionary tale for podcasting,where if you're not like really
intentional about how yousupport your craft, then it can
degrade into this thing whereyou're getting like point
zero007 cents per download orplay.
And so I feel like there'sopportunity for indie musicians
to, instead of just relying onlike royalty pooling percentages
(14:14):
to make money from fan supportor from, you know, sites like
True Fans who are trying to dothe value for value system.
So I think that that might be abetter future for independent
musicians and for podcasters tonot rely so heavily on these
programmatic ads that are prettyunreliable.
Kevin (14:34):
And maybe there's an opportunity for musicians to
learn from podcasters Like maybenext time Jeremiah Bowser books
a gig at the local venue andhas 200 people show up to listen
to his music, maybe he shouldplay a couple songs and then
pause and tell people about hisnew Casper mattress and how
rested he is.
Alban (14:53):
If you think I look great tonight, it's because I slept
on an amazing Casper mattress.
Use promo code Jeremiah Bowserto get $8.73 off your next
purchase.
Jordan (15:04):
Oh man, why can I actually picture this happening
in the future?
Sponsored concerts.
Alban (15:11):
This is what we need, Kevin.
Great, great point.
Jordan (15:15):
I guess this is a good segue, because musicians have
fans and next episode we'regoing to be talking about how to
turn your listeners into superfans.
So if you have any comments orquestions about you know,
turning listeners into superfans, or if you are a super fan
of a podcast maybe you can tellus why you're a super fan of a
podcast Go ahead and tap theTexas show link in the show
(15:37):
notes and we will try toincorporate it in our next
episode.
So until next time, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.
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