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Your Paracast Newsletter — October 23, 2016

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As I've said, we've been trying to build a sales staff for years. We had one person who was doing real well for a few months, burned out, and we never found a replacement. So it's the same old story.

You can't have a return on investment when there's nothing to invest. So we'd have to work out something. Salespeople can work on commission, and the app developer might have to consider possible revenue sharing if it really boosts Paracast+ membership.
 
Gonna do lunch with Alejandro Rojas of OpenMinds next week. We haven't met up in a while, but I'll definitely ask his ideas about monetizing.

Oh and this came from the Program Director of one of the stations that carry The Paracast, WIOS-AM 1480 in Michigan:

"Based on listener statistics from our online streaming, it looks like The Paracast is at least as popular among our audience as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and even more popular than Mark Levin. You have more than double the listenership of Coast To Coast AM in streaming stats."

They went on to explain that online streaming essentially mirrors audience trends on the station itself.

I've been reaching out to stations about how well we're doing.
 
This may be a trivial point, but I would suggest you cut the small talk at the beginning and move FAST into the interview. Some of the shows seem "self-indulgent" because you and the co-host shoot the breeze for awhile upfront. To younger folks, this can seem really boring and they probably cut out before the guest even shows up. I would start FAST and HEAVY with the guest and reserve the small talk banter for After The Paracast. A guide would be a show like DREAMLAND by Whitley Strieber. He doesn't waste our time. He moves right into the interview. Now, I seldom like his guests, but he gets to the meat fast.
 
beyondthestargate said:
This may be a trivial point, but I would suggest you cut the small talk at the beginning and move FAST into the interview. Some of the shows seem "self-indulgent" because you and the co-host shoot the breeze for awhile upfront. To younger folks, this can seem really boring and they probably cut out before the guest even shows up. I would start FAST and HEAVY with the guest and reserve the small talk banter for After The Paracast. A guide would be a show like DREAMLAND by Whitley Strieber. He doesn't waste our time. He moves right into the interview. Now, I seldom like his guests, but he gets to the meat fast.
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Part one gives us a chance to catch up with listeners and alert them to upcoming events, news, shows, etc. So it's not so much "shooting the breeze" but having a personal dialog ahead of the interview. Sometimes we involve the guest in the introduction, as we did this weekend.
 
Somebody is already monetizing your show - GCN. You're providing product that they make money from (or else they wouldn't have you), and you get virtually nothing. I've spent 20 years in the film and television business, and I know a bad deal when I see one. You might do a season for free, or close to it, to establish a relationship, but then a network has to start paying you. If they won't, and yet they're clearly making money, then it's time to bail. You're better off with a much smaller audience (if that really happens) that pays for your product than a big audience that doesn't.
 
GCN is selling 82 radio shows, lead off by Alex Jones, who is getting lots of national publicity because he hangs with Donald Trump.

We get 9 minutes per show (both shows) to sell to advertisers, and keep all the money. They aren't asking for a Paracast+ split.

The reason why we aren't doing well is that we haven't found a sales/marketing person who is able to manage this. It's not easy. Last time we had someone who could crack the code, he burned out in six months, but had good success during the time he was active (in 2009).

The Paracast+ is the example of how well we'd do if people paid. We give them a commercial-free show, an extra podcast and other stuff, and the uptake is a fraction of one percent. It would be more if there was no free show, but most people don't have the discretionary income to pay for another luxury even if that were the only way to get this show.

With or without the network, sales/marketing is the key. With more income, I can afford to hire developers to overhaul and simplify The Paracast+ design and sign-up process, which is awkward and a little confusing. I'm limited by a cheap workaround now.

At least the network gives us a little more credibility with potential advertisers. With more mainstream shows, GCN is less focused on the survivalist stuff than they used to be.

I'm open to ideas, but a lot of it still depends on sales help. Anyone interested in trying?
 
Gene Steinberg said:
We With or without the network, sales/marketing is the key. With more income, I can afford to hire developers to overhaul and simplify The Paracast+ design and sign-up process, which is awkward and a little confusing. I'm limited by a cheap workaround now.

At least the network gives us a little more credibility with potential advertisers. With more mainstream shows, GCN is less focused on the survivalist stuff than they used to be.

I'm open to ideas, but a lot of it still depends on sales help. Anyone interested in trying?
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You and I will just have to agree to disagree. You're trying to fit a 20th century peg into a 21st century hole. Ad revenue isn't the main driver for economic success for ventures like yours; subscriptions are. People have plenty of discretionary income for a fairly-priced product that offers them value that they can't get elsewhere.

At this point, what do you have to lose anyway? You're basically an NCAA athlete, and GCN is the NCAA. They make all the money, you do all the work.

It hasn't worked to earn you quid with them since I first helped you wade through the original contract years ago. It should be clear by now that it never will. The key to being successful in business is knowing when something isn't working, and having the guts to walk away and do things differently. I learned that the hard way about eight years ago (around the time network TV stopped funding docs up here), but it worked out in the end, and I had a much stronger and more profitable career as a result.
 
OK, Paul, I'm listening.

How would we work out a total pay-for-play system?

We'd have to transition the current setup in a way that accounts for those who are paying will not be inconvenienced, and we can expand the base affordably.

How are you doing your stuff now?

And, thanks for looking at that contract in 2010.
 
P.S. As I'm offering unsolicited advice, here's one more thing - you need fewer shows about UFOs, and more about other areas of the paranormal. Ghosts do very well. I should know, just having a new ghost series commissioned here in Canada. I stopped pitching UFOs a decade ago because no network cared. Ghosts? That's still where the ratings / money is. You need to mix it up more.
 
Paul Kimball said:
Somebody is already monetizing your show - GCN. You're providing product that they make money from (or else they wouldn't have you), and you get virtually nothing. I've spent 20 years in the film and television business, and I know a bad deal when I see one. You might do a season for free, or close to it, to establish a relationship, but then a network has to start paying you. If they won't, and yet they're clearly making money, then it's time to bail. You're better off with a much smaller audience (if that really happens) that pays for your product than a big audience that doesn't.
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Thanks Paul, I've been telling him this (and wanting to leave GCN) for years!
 
Again Paul, we need an action plan to make this happen. And we still have to accommodate one or two minor sponsors for tech show, who expected we'd be on a network.

So it's the transition. For when/if I move from GCN, we have to give notice, and convert what we have no to what we are going to do in a very quick way. If we go loose from the GCN, the plan has to be in place, ready to go.

I'm not averse to mixing it up. We've only done two pure UFO shows since mid-September. Your fellow countryman and Friedman/Marden. We have EVPs this week.
 
Yet another possibility presented to me is to go completely online with a digital network and work out a revenue share deal. But I'd have to see hard figures on how much we could derive that way and how it impacts our current setup with Paracast+.
 
Take a hard look at the model Jim Harold has built. It works well. You provide loss leader content for free, and use that to hook folks into the premium stuff. At the moment, I think you actually have it backwards - After the Paracast should be the free bit, and The Paracast should be what people have to pay to listen to, either by subscribing to the series or a la carte. Worry less about your back catalogue and more about what you're going to create moving forward. I understand that there is always a sentimental attachment to what you've done in the past, but business is business, and that's not where the money is. New content creation is what matters.

As for the how, just let GCN know you're out as of a certain date, and then be ready to go on the day after that. And you might fail. That's always a possibility. But no risk, no reward.
 
Christopher O'Brien said:
Thanks Paul, I've been telling him this (and wanting to leave GCN) for years!
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The primary reason I stopped co-hosting years ago was GCN. I was happy to give the contracts a look-over for Gene, and I didn't tell him not to take the deal because at the time it seemed to offer a revenue model that could work down the road, which he needed (and I did not), but I left soon afterwards (I might have done one last show as a co-host... I can't recall) - I wanted nothing to do with Alex Jones, ever.
 
Yes, you were also unhappy with the survivalist ads they were running; it's much better now.

I don't disagree with making After The Paracast a free show that points to the paid show. So we still have a presence at iTunes, etc.

Otherwise, there are back-end things that have to be done. I have streaming software set up, so we can play the current ATP to anyone who clicks on a link at the site.

Other than that, it's putting all the archives behind the paywall — except for the first four years, where the former co-host objects.

If we go this direction — and I'm not against a better revenue model — we'd have to be prepared to give notice and being forced to move quickly. It all has to be prepared in advance as quickly as possible regardless.

Lots of stuff, so little time. I need web development assistance yesterday regardless.

Prices have to be set, and accommodations made for existing subscribers who should be able to renew at the current, lower, rate.

Again nothing is final, but I'm glad the dialog is out there.
 
A final word from me on this. I think you should consider a shorter show if you move to a subscription model (which I clearly recommend). Best of luck, whatever you decide to do.
 
We started at 90 minutes. We could stay two hours, which is approximately the length of the show minus the ads. Sometimes it's not enough.
 
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