OK, I did a little investigative reporting and checked with my sources at GCN.
The situation is more nuanced than it seems. So on the surface, GCN appears to run spots and make plenty of money on our backs, on our free labor. In exchange, we receive 9 minutes of ad slots per episode and try to make it work.
But that's true for ALL GCN hosts, even that guy who hangs with Donald Trump. They all have to make it on their own with ads, sites, etc. So I'm sure InfoWars is pulling in cash because Alex Jones found a way to cash in without depending on GCN for a paycheck.
GCN has a fixed cost per show. They pay an hourly fee for the satellite uplink, via Westwood One, to feed local stations. They have to pay a full-time engineer, affiliate relations people, publicity people, producers and traffic. So they pay several thousand dollars per month to carry The Paracast and The Tech Night Owl LIVE. Now that we have roughly two dozen affiliates each, I'm sure they are making money. Not a lot. To them, it's about quantity, and the total income from 82 shows adds up.
The other advantage of GCN is guests. Book publicists look for potential audience, and they reach out to us with people like Gary Lachman because of that. Before I booked Stanton Friedman and Kathleen Marden on the show to talk about their latest book, I got a PR sheet from their publisher. They didn't select The Paracast because I've known Stan for 40 years. They did it because we had an audience that appealed to them.
That doesn't mean we stay with GCN. We have to look at our needs and how to meet them.
If we go subscription-only, 99% of our listeners are history. Although the vote doesn't reflect that, I've gotten private emails that make it clear there are many people out there who aren't prepared to pay for a show. There's also too much free paranormal content online, so they go elsewhere, even if The Paracast is better. If we have 1,000 listeners, confined to a paywall, book publishers and major guests will look elsewhere to send guests. They will look at other potential sources on GCN and other networks.
That doesn't mean we should not go subscription-only, but we have to be realistic about what happens. It's not just the same show behind a paywall. There's a consequence.
There is another available option, to transfer to an all-podcast network, a major network, and it means revenue sharing. Does it reduce our potential audience? Maybe not, and maybe it continues to give us the prestige to attract the best guests. I'm still waiting for an answer from them as to what they are offering.
There are loads of nuances in all these decisions, and in the end we will do what we think is best for our bottom line, and with full respect to loyal listeners who have stuck with us for up to 10 years without asking anything of us but to give them a great show every week.
So I have made some snap analyses here. But I am not making a final decision. I know Chris wants us to move the show, but we have to make sure we know where and we are prepared to deal with the upsides and downsides. It's still very much about the money.
