Time to Pay for Podcasts

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060221-6228.html' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060221-6228.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Are you ready to pay for podcasts? Audible hopes so, and they're moving into the pay-per-podcast world through a partnership with Ricky Gervais, creator (and star) of the BBC's original version of "The Office." Gervais produced 12 episodes of "The Ricky Gervais Show" podcast for UK newspaper The Guardian, which offered them as a free download. The show proved so popular, though, that it was recently snatched up by Audible, which plans to charge for the show's second season that begins on February 28."</i><br /><br />Making a quality product and pricing it fairly is usually a good business model. Giving your product away at first and then starting to charge is a long standing business practice. Still, they are asking $1.95 per half hour episode. I think this is a bit much, but I've not listened to the show, so maybe not. I think a better plan might be a version with embedded commercials for a really low price (or free) and a commercial free version for a higher price.

[nz0eBoy]

Having listened to all of the episodes I was prepared for this to happen and was willing to pay for future episodes, but US$1.95 is a bit high in my opinion.

The podcast already features commercials, albeit short and humourously done, so I don't know if this is a model that would work - although presumably a paid version wouldn't include these