Your Paracast Newsletter — October 23, 2016

[Gene Steinberg]

THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
October 23, 2016
www.theparacast.com

Former Rock & Roller Gary Lachman Explores the Amazing Mind of Colin Wilson on The Paracast

The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.

SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, the new Paracast+ Video Channel, episode transcripts, Special Features and Classic Episodes. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership and special free eBook offers! For more information about our premium package, please visit: http://plus.theparacast.com/.

This Week's Episode: Fans of 70s and 80s rock might recall the name Gary Lachman, or his stage name, Gary Valentine, who was a founding member of Blondie, but left the band before it hit the big time. Since leaving show business, Gary has become “the author of more than a dozen books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, and the western inner tradition.” His latest work is entitled, “Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson,” about someone regarded as “one of the most underrated and defiant scholars of the 20th century.” Gary will also offer some insights into his musical career, New York’s rock scene in the late 1970s, and the interest of rock musicians in mystic subjects.

Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet

Gary Lachman’s Blog: Gary Lachman

After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on October 23: “The Paracast at the Crossroads.” We examine the history of the show, he we got on a commercial broadcast network and what it does — and doesn’t — do for us. Gene and Chris ponder the show’s future, a way to finally see some returns from over a decade of hard work. Does the show remain on a terrestrial radio network, or seek a home on one of the newer online networks? Is there a better way to do what we do and market the show? That's a question that you listeners may help us resolve.

Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.

The Paracast at the Crossroads

By Gene Steinberg

I co-founded The Paracast early in 2006. At the time, I was hosting a technology show, The Tech Night Owl LIVE, and hadn’t given in to my paranormal interests for a number of years. But when the possibility of also hosting a paranormal radio show presented itself, I didn’t stop to think about it. I let my instincts tell me this was the right way to go.

Within months, The Paracast became an online sensation, attracting tens of thousands of listeners who wanted a hard-hitting show that took no prisoners. Unlike other shows that believed every wacky claim that came down the pike, we didn’t pander to our listeners. We did our level best to seek the facts behind the mysteries that have confounded humans for ages.

So while most paranormal radio shows and TV documentaries treated UFOs as if their origin was a given — they must be extraterrestrial — The Paracast took a “wait a minute!” approach and began to ask the hard questions about the anomalies that raised other possibilities. But even if the common theory was, in the end, the correct one, there was no harm in reexamining the evidence.

For a while The Paracast actually began to earn its keep. In those days, we had a salesperson who was determined to build a roster of blue chip advertisers to support the show. But doing that job day after day is extremely hard, and he soon burned out. To this day, after trying out several people, we’ve never found his replacement. The show wasn’t quite popular enough to consistently pull in major advertisers, and being online, one among tens of thousands of podcasts, was hardly conducive to giving The Paracast the credibility it deserved as an advertising medium.

In the summer of 2010, I received an offer to put the show on an alternative terrestrial network, GCN. As many of you know, GCN’s most popular act, then and now, is Alex Jones. Initially the ads run by the network also catered to a more extreme, survivalist audience.

But it was a real network, and it had hundreds of affiliates around the U.S. Accepting that offer would begin to put The Paracast on some of those stations.

The deal called for both shows to be carried on the weekends, which is usually down time on radio stations. But it was a start.

Unfortunately, this left us with two serious limitations. One was revenue. As with many GCN shows, the deal was barter, meaning we provided the show in exchange for nine minutes of advertising slots for each episode. If we managed to sell those ads, it would mean a decent salary for all involved. If not, we’d continue to struggle. Exploiting that potential was very difficult, because the demographics and ratings reports that many advertisers require are generally not offered by radio stations for weekend shows.

After six years with GCN, The Paracast has arrived on 24 stations. This is more than most of their weekend shows, and they are happy with us, but not happy enough to help us build revenue.

So I sought an alternative. After long negotiations, GCN gave us permission to offer a commercial-free version of the show on a subscription basis. They were generous enough not to request revenue sharing — at least for now. Even then, it has always been clear to me that subscription podcasts rarely succeed. So even though The Paracast+ offered exclusive extras, such as After The Paracast, show transcripts and other features, the number of active subscriptions is actually quite small. Most listeners are willing to put up with the ads, and if we went all-subscription, I doubt the show would be able to sustain itself. People may appreciate what we do, but these are difficult times and they have other priorities.

So The Paracast is at the crossroads. There is some income from advertising for both shows, and a small premium subscription base. Together it is far from sufficient to pay a decent salary to a host and a co-host. This is one of the reasons I continue to struggle financially, and many of you know that I’m at an age where other income opportunities are few. I’m probably doing better than I would if I gave it all up and relied on some of those alternatives.

I’ll probably live a lot longer too, doing what I love.

Chris? Well, it’s not at all fair how little he benefits. There has to be a better way.

So does that mean we should give up on GCN? I’m not at all sure. In the last year, their affiliate relationships people have been more aggressive about lining up new stations for us. But listeners still complain about the ads, particularly since most pure podcasts don’t run near as many. But our contract calls for distributing the free show intact, and, as I said, we were lucky to get approval for The Paracast+ as an alternative.

But traditional radio is no longer a thriving business. Radio advertising income is down, and stations have to compete with a number of alternatives, from satellite radio, to podcasts and streaming music from the likes of Apple Music and Spotify.

There are other ways to distribute the show. One possibility is to move everything to the cloud, and work with an existing online radio network, but it would have to be done in a way that provides guaranteed revenue. That’s something that’s already being considered.

During this weekend’s episode of After The Paracast, Chris and I put our heads together to discuss the situation and how best to move forward. This is the sort of discussion that you are invited to participate in. We are open to ideas to take The Paracast to the next level, and we’re not going to dismiss any reasonable possibility without giving it some thought.

I know many of you have built or worked for successful businesses, some of which involve the media. We have an active forum where you are welcome to toss ideas at us, so we can see the best direction to take.

In 2021, The Paracast will celebrate its 15th anniversary, and some of you realize that I shall be quite old then. But I’m still raring to go, and Chris and I are looking for the best path forward. I hope you listeners will help us take that journey.

Copyright 1999-2016 The Paracast LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!

 

[wwkirk]

So, are you seriously considering leaving GCN. Would you really gain by going all internet? I thought it was an advantage being on terrestrial radio.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Being on a real network gets us credibility. It may even help with guests, but it is sure not helping with the bottom line. We're still not getting much ad revenue, and that was a major reason to join the network, since we are given 9 minutes per episode of each show to sell. But you'll see many are trade-outs (ads for a web server, etc.), favors, and ads for our own stuff. Very few are actually paid, and that is what hurts bad.

Also radio is very different from what it used to be in my misspent youth, as you well know.

Let's just say different options are on the table, and we're happy to put more on the table.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

My 2 cents are that, talking as a listener and forum member, I'd like some kind of visual content. A bit like the 'Open Minds' vehicle with Alejandro Rojas.
I don't know how Open Minds does financially, if it pays for itself etc - I have zero experience in business or media (though my father is a journalist -a very honest one if you can believe that!) and I haven't a clue about a business model for such things. But I do know that a large percentage of the topics covered in episodes of the Paracast, easily lend themselves, and would be improved by, a visual aspect.

I don't know if this would be an online show presented by a regular host or just related content -related to that week's show topics. Possibly narrated audibly or subtitled, I don't really know. I realise that there is no doubt an awful lot of work required just to make a few minutes of visual content.

Younger people aren't getting into Ufology as much or in the same way as previous generations. The demographic of UFO conventions demonstrates that well. But the proliferation of paranormal TV shows and movies recently also shows that there definitely an audience out there for paranormal topics. Do younger people require a more visual aspect to content they view through their iPads and smartphones? I know some younger people who listen to podcasts but I know there are far, far more who are more likely to watch content on Youtube and the like.

The Paracast as a radio/podcast show needn't change at all in that as a paranormal-esoteric themed show, it is excellent and stimulating and a regular must-see for many of us. Perhaps a regular associated does of visual content would provide that magnet to pull in the viewers who don't connect so much with audio only.

So yes there exists a Paracast + video channel, that has a single video on it. I'd love to see much more there although I realise it can take a huge effort for what incentive? There isn't the money to pay a team or person to run that - and I am arguing that such an expansion might be the way to generate income by increasing the listenership. But of course it's a classic chicken-and-egg situation. You need the money to do the work that gives you the money to do the work! But if there is no money at the start, the work doesn't get done!

I really wish I had an answer, or a rich benefactor. All I can contribute is that I think that for most Paracast episodes, I can generate plenty ideas of visual content that would go very well with such a topic. Basically, while I am at home or out and about, listening to the latest episode of the week, I am constantly thinking that I'd want to put a face to the names, to the places and to the experiences being talked about. Of course anyone could write down facts and pointers from a show and go google them to find related visual content, but most people want someone else, someone knowledgeable, to put it all together and present it to them nicely in a logical order, using graphics or film clips etc to illustrate. I suppose a bit like a mini-documentary about each episode. A gargantuan effort I realise, I'm just saying that it would be great and it may well bring in the numbers of consumers that then interests advertisers who pay well.

It's all very well saying any of this and Gene and Chris are very aware of what can be great, but the missing part of the puzzle is finance and that is where I have nothing to offer.

Anyone?

 

[SheaOlmsford]

Being on a real network gets us credibility. It may even help with guests, but it is sure not helping with the bottom line. We're still not getting much ad revenue, and that was a major reason to join the network, since we are given 9 minutes per episode of each show to sell. But you'll see many are trade-outs (ads for a web server, etc.), favors, and ads for our own stuff. Very few are actually paid, and that is what hurts bad.

Also radio is very different from what it used to be in my misspent youth, as you well know.

Let's just say different options are on the table, and we're happy to put more on the table.

It seems to me from my ancient viewpoint that "young people" (which is anyone under 40) are totally plugged into the internet. Everywhere I go, I see young people on their iPhone. Recently, I was in my doctor's waiting room for HonorHealth on Tatum. The waiting room is very large. Almost everyone but me was on their phone while waiting. I was reading a (gasp) book!

So I believe that modern coverage of a show would be best served on the internet, as long as the network is popular and has some flagship programs, just like a mall having some large anchor department stores.

Do young people even listen to the radio much? Not like when I was young and there were no other alternatives. The age when Art Bell was King of Night Time radio seems to have passed. Paranormal shows are a dime a dozen.

But this is just opinion. I have no marketing experience. I confess I had a bad experience with Race Hobbs and KGRA. He never updated the website so I never knew who was on a show. He never updated the archives even though he promised all shows would be archived for paying members. If he is still such a slacker, then I would stay away from there.

However, on the plus side you get the pull from Richard Dolan's show which I understand is pretty popular.

Shouldn't any such internet network have demographics and models to convince you to join? You shouldn't have to beg.

 

[Ralph]

Hi guys

My thoughts regarding monetising...
I think you need to decide what your primary model is - podcasting or Radio and then go after it!
Does not mean that you can't do both, but the other is secondary.
Who is your target demographic - I suspect your podcast demographic is younger than your radio demographic.

If your primary model is podcasting:
1. Offer good value in the free show, with adverts you are financially benefitting from.
I think you give really good value in the free show - in fact, you give away the crown jewels.
I think you should continue removing the adverts for Paracast+ listeners.
2. Provide excellent value in the After the Paracast that is behind your paywall.
Frankly, at the moment I think the value in After The Paracast is pitiful - much of the time it is just a low key discussion. It might be of value for you as the hosts to debrief, but there is little value for me as a listener. This should be the crown jewels!
3. Occasionally (but regularly) cross sell your show with collaborations with other podcasters in the same genre - appear on their show in exchange for an appearance on your show. This grows the pie for both of you.
4. Consider the income stream you could generate from a Paracast app on iphone or android - this will cost you to develop but may be profitable (or may not).
5. Do radio as supplemental income and as a channel for introducing people to the Paracast+ podcast.
6. For goodness sake, take a holiday! Prevent burnout. My podcatcher will still attempt to download, and will find new podcasts when you are back! It's not like radio. And I will realise how much I miss your podcast and it's value to me when I don't get it!

If your primary model is Radio:
1. You've got to drive radio contracts and collaborations that yield the primary income. I have no expertise in this. This is where you put your effort.
2. Your podcast is a supplementary income source - however I cannot see how you can use it to strengthen income from your primary income source.

As to content material, I think you have to decide whether the show is really a poorly named "ufocast" or whether it should be a "paracast" covering the wider scope of the paranoramal.
Personally, my observation is that UFOlogy is a limited field, a decreasing field of experts and with falling interest levels. I wonder if there are enough cashed-up listeners willing to separate with their money to make it financially viable.
I suspect a balanced, wider topic scope would be more commercially successful - including hard core academic parapsychology, cryptozoology to UFOs, etc., but treated with the same rigor as you do today. I think Chris has been able to lead the show some way down this path already, but think you need to move further in this direction.

Hope that is useful.
I have enjoyed listening to the show for many years now, initially as a free listener, and now as a Paracast+ subscriber. Thanks for your hard work.

 

[Greers Meeting Planner]

Paracast app. Yes you would need to develop it but crowd source it and discuss the crowd source in each show.

You need to stop being so nice and get more assertive in making people get their wallets out.

Allow me to explain in this long form text...

Possible reason for low subscribers is the number of steps involved in making a payment. Firstly I'm not In America so I didn't hear you guys on radio I think i stumbled across the paracast on a youtube channel, then after a few shows I started going to the paracast.com FOR FREE and getting the free show and only after months I got round to signing up and being a paid member, it was always "I'll do it next week" .... yet... its the highlight of my week from any tv or radio!

I have a decent job so the price is reasonable and easy to make, it's just laziness really. If I could have downloaded an app to listen I would have and if the free show ran for 30 mins and then stopped and a pop up came up saying 'sign up to listen to the rest of the show' I would have because it would have made the choice for me and confronted my procrastination.

Carry on with GCN and use the audience to get people to download the app for free and the app is the tool to make people sign up easy and the reminders get in your way if you don't sign up. If you get enough users sell the advertising space.

Before you have the app make joining the paracast.com conditional of subscription for a start. Sorry folks no subscription no show!

I will pay $50 aus dollars for two tickets to see a crappy film at the cinema I will normally regret seeing ...why?... because there is no option to go In for free if I watch the adverts.

You provide a fantastic broadcast you need to make people pay to hear it for longer than an introductory teaser.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Thanks.

If we made the show strictly behind a paywall, we'd lose most of our listeners. People have priorities, such as putting food on the table, and I've suffered enough from financial difficulties to know that even a few dollars a month can be a stretch sometimes when I have to buy some soup. So there will always be a free show.

Right now, the show is a sort of hybrid. It's posted as a podcast on iTunes, and available from GCN online and via their affiliates. The free version gets ads, the paid version loses those ads, and we include After The Paracast and the other stuff. An app? Well maybe if we can get an iOS/Android developer to work on one for this and my other show. I'd like that. To have it linked to Paracast+ with a brief sample of the ad-free show might be useful too.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Just FYI: This discussion is not about Gary Lachman, so I moved all the messages to a more relevant thread.

 

[Wade]

I suppose you know more than anybody if you are gettiong bang for your buck Gene but considering the number of times i've seen announcements here regarding a new affiliate it doesn't seem like a lot of growth especially if it is a whole network behind it as opposed to a single show with a limited budget and a staff of two or three. I haven't listened to the show yet but if you are considering leaving GCN as part of your figuring process i'm assuming this may be part of the case.

if you do leave GCN im going to fall back on what i mentioned earlier this year. instead of working on expanding maybe contract a little and fall back and make it fit your current financial situation. In this mode you may not have to worrry about chasing after a salesperson


I don't have my pulse on the number of paranormal podcasting but i have to wonder if all the other broadcasters out there are working on expanding using terrestrial radio. It doesn't seem like the case to me. I have to wonder if they are just making it work for them using thir own web site and podcasting format. i'm willing to bet that is the case.

There is one aspect of Ralph's post that i really agreed with and it reiterates what i mentioned earlier this year. If you are no longer associated with GCN and therefore not compelled to put out a weekly (new) give yourself a break from broadcasting weekly go bimonthly. This could give Chris a better chance to pursue his projects and for you to maybe concentrate on other revenue streams maybe and you wouldn't have to spend as much time chasing down guests and be able to pursue other matters. Is there a way to grow that would still necessitate a salesperson that wouldn't involve a terrestrial radio station ? If so then going bimonthly would also give this salesperson a chance to earn his or her keep on other projects

If you do want to remain a weekly show then maybe consider putting the archives behind a paywall and then every other week put one of those shows out there free. Maybe during holiday periods you could present special shows. If you were free of GCN maybe put put these shows by theme. i.e put together a bunch of segments from various shows centering around a certain subject.

On an unrelated note i always wondered what a bloopers reel would sound like. i'm assuming you toss away the flub ups but hang on to them and have them as a show . There just has to be a time someone said something that would not pass broadcast standards or quality standards that we would find enjoyable.

Whatever path you decide to take good luck!

 

[Gene Steinberg]

It's important for advertisers to be consistent and dependable. That's another reason for a network, and we'd have to consider whether any decision not to be on a network impacts that. Then again, with such talk, I suppose the network could decide they're not interested.

We have 24 stations picking up The Paracast and 20 for the tech show.

Contracting, once again, is not going to help build ad revenue. Advertisers won't to believe you are growing, or at least trying to grow.

 

[Wade]

So i ask this question out of curiosity more so that anything to be considered in any meaningful way and may be irrelevant. But regarding my personal listening habits i don't listen to a lot of shows even if i download them. This reflects not only personal interests but also my time as i have a lot of outside interests and i listen to a number of other paranormal podcasts that reflect my listening preferences.

For my part i'm a plus memeber so i pay (a very fair price) for something that i don't take advantage of. In many cases i use forum chatter to decide if something is going to appeal to me. But there must be others like me that are not plus membets that just don't listen to every show even though they may download them. Keeping that in mind does information like that work for you and/or against you in a terrestrial radio format that you are paying for ? i guess what i'm asking is do you have to give a little to advertisers because of this fact and the fact that people will fast forward through whereas this consideration is not an aspect of whatever rates GCN charges you?

If it's not too nosy.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

We set our own rates for our own ads. GCN gives us 9 minutes of ad slots per episode for our own stuff. The rest is theirs and we don't share in that revenue — and I sure wish we did.

 

[Randall]

Being on a real network gets us credibility ...

You have an advantage that a lot of others don't have. You have an existing Internet product that is paying its own way, and that makes it more valuable than 99% of the rest of them. So my first suggestion would be for you package it all up nice and neat, and see if you can sell it to a media conglomerate that collects revenue generating websites.

You can probably negotiate an agreement to stay on to produce more shows for some sort of wage. If it doesn't sell, so what? You're no further behind, but if you can get 250K or more, that would alleviate your immediate financial crunch and help kick start another spin-off project. For example if you retain shared publishing rights, you could start your own personal website ( you've already got genesteinberg.com ).

In the meantime, get your own personal site setup anyway. Sell audiobooks, CDs, and your own advertising, including advertising for the Paracast, Nightowl, and other shows, plus offer your services as a professional voice for doing other interviews, narration, and commercial work. Your friend Bob would be a good networking resource in that regard. This would put you in a position to diversify your talents and remain active in the things you love to do.

 

[Greers Meeting Planner]

Thanks.

If we made the show strictly behind a paywall, we'd lose most of our listeners. People have priorities, such as putting food on the table, and I've suffered enough from financial difficulties to know that even a few dollars a month can be a stretch sometimes when I have to buy some soup. So there will always be a free show.

Right now, the show is a sort of hybrid. It's posted as a podcast on iTunes, and available from GCN online and via their affiliates. The free version gets ads, the paid version loses those ads, and we include After The Paracast and the other stuff. An app? Well maybe if we can get an iOS/Android developer to work on one for this and my other show. I'd like that. To have it linked to Paracast+ with a brief sample of the ad-free show might be useful too.

I get you want to do a free show but why give them the whole show for free. Give them 30 minutes free. There are millions of people around the world signed up for streaming services etc and it's something you should feel absolutely fine about charging for.

While you can get the show for free there is nothing making you pull out your credit card as there is always other stuff to spend your money on... So why pay for one with a free option ?

 

[Greers Meeting Planner]

Think of it like software Gene you get 30 day free trial (or 30 mins in the paracasts case) and if you like the software you have to sign up to use it beyond the 30 days. Your giving them lifetime software for free they just have some banner adverts in the menu bar

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Several considerations:

1. There must always be an easily accessible free version of the show, with ads, because most people cannot or will not subscribe. Neither Chris nor I could manage a subscription on a sustained basis to anything. I only pay for Netflix when they run programming I need to see, which is several months a year. Some people move in an out of a Paracast+ subscription for similar reasons. They load up on shows, give it up, and rejoin later. I wish it were otherwise, but I have to respect the fact that people need to support themselves and their families first before considering the extras.

2. To have a method to sample shows might work with an app, but our payment infrastructure is managed by this forum's PayPal API. If we were to choose a different system, it would require backend work to import the payment link to PayPal and keep them active. I don't even know if that's possible, but it puts limits on what we can do. But that doesn't mean there's no way we can have a custom app designed to promote Paracast+. You hear a small part of the ad-free show or After The Paracast, along with a link to the forum upgrade section to buy your subscription. That would help promote the subscriptions. This would require a volunteer, a really skilled iOS/Android programmer (we need to support both platforms), and I'm open to how it might work.

3. Even if we decided the terrestrial radio connection wasn't viable, the alternative needs to be looked it to insure revenue. It is very much about exploiting a six-figure listenership in a way that pays the bills.

 

[marduk]

Honestly -- and I see this as a spectator and as a non-paid subscriber so feel free to bin my opinion -- adds and the whole radio format is detrimental to the show's popularity.

The folks I've told about the show have all stopped listening after a few weeks because the ad runs are jarring and too frequent. To be frank, the feedback was that it sounds just like listening to late night talk radio... so why not just listen to late night talk radio?

A mechanism that seems to work and seems popular is what Dan does on the 5x5 network -- ads are run by folks doing the show, and are infrequent. Say 3-4 ads per couple hour show, run by the hosts, and with some linkage to the topics of the show. They seem to treat podcasts not as time-shifting radio show, but as a different medium.

Again, I benefit from your show and don't pay for it so please don't take this as a criticism. I've listened for years, and obviously love the show.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

The number of ads is precisely what you hear on, as you say, "late night talk radio," since we're carried on that kind of network and the free version of the show is, according to the network deal, the same version.

It's very clear that we are, since "GCN" is mentioned a number of times during the episode; it should be obvious. I'm surprised people don't realize this. Maybe GCN needs to better convey the fact that they are a traditional broadcast network.

We can go completely online, with fewer ad breaks perhaps, but they'd still be on a fixed schedule. This depends on the needs of any online network we join. Either way, the ideal would be to join with an established organization that has achieved ratings and marketing success, so we can leverage that. But the free show will not be ad free. For that, you join Paracast+.

 

[Greers Meeting Planner]

How do the mysterious universe guys monetise? I know they have show sponsors and a plus extension.

Why about trying to get one or two primary sponsors? But again you need to put in the sales calls. Building a business ain't easy and it requires investment. You may have to spend a little e.g. on a sales staff and maybe an app development to get a return on your investment