This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
A few recent listener questions have been on the topic of making money from podcasts. There are a lot of people out there who are starting podcasts. They want to know things like how do you find sponsors? How can you get more distribution or more audience, more listeners? What are some other ways of getting paid through podcasts in addition to sponsorship?
Well, today we have a related question. Do some podcasts make more money than others? Not just some shows, but specific genres or categories? Well, guess what? The answer is yes.
Some genres or categories and certainly some shows do tend to be much bigger in terms of audience and also in terms of profitability. Now, those two things are closely linked, which I will talk about in a moment. We're going to peek under the hood a bit. Also, a funny story about our caller here references a podcast that was recently acquired for $20 million. I'll tell you why it's a funny story after the break and his question.
Hey, Chris, this is Craig from Omaha. I've been listening to the show for a few years. Thanks for the stories and helpful content, man. It's been great. I heard that Spotify acquired a podcast recently for $20 million.
What a crazy valuation. I assume most podcasts aren't worth very much money at all, but now I'm wondering. Are there certain types of shows that are more profitable than other ones? Do you really need a celebrity to host a podcast for it to have a high valuation? Basically, if someone was going to start a podcast and could choose any genre type or style and they wanted to make as much money as possible, what should they do?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, man. Thanks. So the funny story is shortly after this $20 million deal was announced, the deal that Craig mentions, it was for the podcast Call Her Daddy by Alexandra Cooper. That was in fact by Spotify. Another deal was announced by Amazon for a show called Smartless.
And the terms of this deal were not fully disclosed, but it was said to be up to $80 million. An $80 million podcast. I mean, I thought a $20 million podcast was incredible. I'm still waiting for my 20 and my $80 million. I mean, honestly, I'd take either one.
I might prefer the 80, but you know, wouldn't be picky. That second one is from Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. So maybe step one of the process is be famous. Okay. What is step two? Well, what is step one for most of us?
Craig asks about genre news and analysis shows tend to do well. There's a lot of daily news podcasts. Now, you know, when I started side hustle school, there were very few daily podcasts of any kind or any genre around. Now there are a lot of them, especially in the news category. But true crime is also huge.
You may know that from listening to other podcasts. So is sports, comedy, and there are a growing number of these kinds of celebrity shows. That Craig mentioned, and also that I just talked about in terms of that huge, huge number. So Craig says, I'm going to use his words here. You know, if you're trying to start a podcast to make as much money as possible, I just want to call that out because most people who are starting podcasts have additional reasons to start podcasts rather than just, you know, I want to make some money.
But let's say that's the goal, you know, that's okay. I would choose the genre and category where you think you can attract the biggest audience. That's how I'd make the decision because aside from these celebrity driven deals, the evaluation of a podcast is based largely on its audience. And that's how sponsorship and advertising rates are determined and sold and so on. So in other words, you want to chase audience.
You want to chase the audience, not the sponsors, not the money. If you have the audience, sponsors will find you. It's much better to be in a situation of having an active audience that's engaged and growing. And then you have to figure out, okay, how do I connect with the right agency or distribution network or whatever? That stuff is easy to figure out once you have the audience.
So I would always, always focus audience first. That's what I think about that. Craig, thank you for calling in. Listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll talk about the next $100 million podcast or, you know, whatever comes up.
We'll continue to feature them along with case studies, stories, tips, all kinds of good stuff throughout the rest of the year. Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. ♪♪♪ From the Onward Project.
