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CMU Insights at AIM House: The Podcast Business

By | Published on Thursday 7 May 2020

AIM House 2020

The Association Of Independent Music is presenting its annual AIM House conference programme (which usually takes place at The Great Escape) virtually this year on Friday 15 May – and CMU Insights will curate a strand within that programme. Over the next week we’ll run you through each of the sessions CMU will present.

THE PODCAST BUSINESS at 3.40pm on Friday 15 May
Podcasts were booming even before the COVID-19 lockdown began and everyone was confined to their homes looking for alternative sources of online entertainment.

And while there have been short-lived spikes in interest in podcasting at various points over the last fifteen years, it’s during the most recent boom that some UK podcasters have actually found a way of making money out of their podcasting (podcasting for money have previously been more common in the US). Meanwhile, it’s in this podcast boom that the music industry has more proactively started embracing the medium.

But how are podcasters making money? And are those now generating revenue a really small minority, while most people still put out podcast programmes for fun or to promote some other product or project? Subscriptions, advertising, sponsorship, advertorial, crowdfunding, tipping and upselling merch have all been used by podcasters to generate revenue, but which work best, and what platforms can help?

Meanwhile, how can the music industry use podcasting to its benefit? Should we now be PRing artists and music to podcasters just like we do to radio? Should artists and labels be making their own podcasts? And why – if the music industry wants podcasters championing its music – is it still so hard to actually license music for use in a podcast programme?

So many questions. Good news! We’ll have some answers. Joining us for the big podcast debate in AIM House will be Gee Davy from AIM, Joe Copeman from Acast, Sophie Paluch from Blueprint Pods and Xanthe Fuller from Mixcloud. CMU’s Chris Cooke – an alleged podcaster – will host.

To access these CMU sessions – and all the other debates, conversations and workshops taking place as part of the AIM House virtual conference – get signed up for free here.



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