School of Podcasting: Expert Tips for Launching and Growing Your Podcast

A few years ago I accidentally hit a guy on the golf course. I'm not proud of it — although it did bank in almost perfectly off his calf on its way toward the hole. But the swing that caused it taught me something I haven't stopped thinking about: my brother told me to quit trying to kill the ball and just make good contact. Looking at podcasting, it turns into the best explanation I've found for why so many podcasts stop growing.
If you've ever chased a bigger download number, wondered why nobody signs up for the thing you're selling despite having a decent audience, or just felt like you're doing everything and getting nowhere, keep listening — because the fix isn't a bigger swing.
It's Not About a Big Audience. It's About the Right One.
I talk to podcasters constantly who are chasing the same fantasy: flip a switch, get 10,000 downloads overnight. I get it — I've wanted that too. But it doesn't exist unless you've got a massive budget, and even then it doesn't always work.
Quick, honest question: who won American Idol season six? They had a million people watching. Doesn't mean you remember them, and it doesn't mean they connected.
Here's the math that changed how I think about this: if you ran your show as a $30-a-month membership, you'd only need one person willing to pay to break even (assuming you're spending $30/month). But not just any listener does that — it has to be someone connected to you. So the real target was never more downloads. It's finding roughly 500 right-fit people who trust you. Downloads don't join a membership.
Connected people do.
What a Musician Taught Me About Connection
I study podcasters, but I also study musicians, authors, and YouTubers, because we're all in the same business — entertaining people with our art. One of my favorite channels right now is Mary Spender's. She's a musician, not a podcaster, but what she said recently hit me right in the chest:
"We've spent years treating streaming numbers as though they measure fandom, but perhaps they often measure familiarity instead. Millions of streams doesn't necessarily become hundreds of people willing to leave the house on a Wednesday evening. Maybe we've become incredibly good at measuring attention, but forgotten how to measure connection."
Swap "streams" for "downloads" and "tickets" for "memberships," and she's describing exactly what's happening in podcasting. Mary lost £12,000 on her last tour. Instead of giving up, she changed her approach: "Not to chase the biggest room, to chase the right room. Not to impress the most people, to matter to the people who choose to be there." Knowledge is knowing that. Wisdom is acting on it — and she is, booking her own shows again, more intentionally this time (And enjoying it more).
How to Actually Get in Front of the Right People
We've been brainstorming growth ideas in the School of Podcasting community, and the point was never to do all of them — it's to pick one, test it, and measure it. A few examples:
Guesting on other podcasts that share your audience — less friction, since that audience already knows how to listen to a podcast.
Podcast swaps, shout-outs, or a 30-second promo trade.
Speaking engagements or workshops.
Writing for a publication your audience already reads.
Your own blog and SEO — no, it's not dead.
Partnerships that go beyond sponsorship, where you actually help each other promote.
Word of mouth — which drives roughly 70% of podcast growth, and yet almost nobody deliberately asks for it. Ask your audience, specifically and simply, to share the show with one friend.
Local, unglamorous options: I used to slip a business card into a book on the page matching my age, in a genre my audience would read. Free. Slow. It worked, a little at a time.

None of these flip a switch. They're singles, not grand slams. You build an audience one person at a time.
Would you spend 5 minutes to get 36 people to your site each week?
How I Found Out What's Actually Working: Click Trackers
Here's the part that surprised me. I started putting a click tracker (I use Switchy) on every link I post — social, LinkedIn, wherever. Takes about 41 seconds per link. What I found: my email list outperformed every social platform by double digits, while everything else stayed in single digits. One email drove 36 clicks in a week — times four weeks, that's potentially 144 people who might actually listen, follow, or tell a friend. And it cost me less than five minutes.
Would you spend 5 minutes a week to get 36 people to your site each week? Again, this is not the 10,000 switch. It's one strategy, and leaves you lots of time to try others.
The click isn't the whole story, though — a click is still just attention, the same thing Mary warned about. What matters is what happens after it: did that traffic turn into an email subscriber, a membership signup, a real connection?
Track that, and you'll quickly find out which platforms are worth your time and which ones you can quietly stop feeding. (If you want a free option instead of a paid one, Short.io does the same basic job.) So the "extra" time you spent using click trackers, you get back by identifying strategies that don't work for you.
Two People Who Grew by Showing Up Consistently, Not Loudly
In the early days of podcasting, Steve Stewart (Podcast Editors Academy) built recognition for years by simply leaving comments on other people's shows — for free. Eventually every show about podcasting seemed to mention him. Neil Veglio did something similar on Pod News Weekly Review, showing up consistently with sharp, specific insight until listeners started recognizing his name. Neither of them flipped a switch. They just kept showing up in the right rooms. I plan on doing some sort of collab with Neil in the future.
Ask Your Audience Who They Actually Are
If you're just starting out and don't have an audience yet, go find where your future audience already hangs out — YouTube comments on a similar channel's most-viewed video, or Amazon reviews for books on your topic (skip the 5-star and 1-star reviews; the 4-star ones that explain what would've made it a 5 are where the real feedback lives).
And if you already have an audience: ask them directly what they want, more than once, and explain why it helps them to tell you. Track the link to your survey the same way you track everything else — if 12 people click but only 6 finish it, that's useful data too.
The Bottom Line
Hope is not a strategy. Neither is waiting for the 10,000-download switch — I've been looking for one since 2007, and it doesn't exist. Growth doesn't come from a bigger swing: more effort, more platforms, more reach. It comes from solid contact with the right people, and you won't know what's solid contact until you measure it.
If you want help building the kind of connection that actually turns into a membership, that's exactly what I do at School of Podcasting. Head to schoolofpodcasting.com and use coupon code LISTENER for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription — backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Links & Resources Mentioned
School of Podcasting — https://schoolofpodcasting.com (coupon code: LISTENER)
PodPage — https://podpage.com
Switchy — Click tracker with lifetime one time payment. (aff)
Short.io — https://short.io (free click-tracker alternative)
Steve Stewart / Podcast Editors Academy — stevestewart.me
Ask the Podcast Coach - Weekly live show with free podcast consulting.

Also mentioned by name on the episode, but no specific link was given on air — worth dropping in your own before publishing:
Big Podcast Playbook (David Hooper)
Pod Mastery (Neil Veglio)
Buzzsprout (ad platform)
Pocket Casts (app)

Mentioned In This Episode
Join the School of Podcasting Community
Profit From Your Podcast Book
Power of Podcasting Network
Dave's YouTube Channel

What I Learned (and Relearned) at Empowered Podcasting Conference
I got triggered at a podcasting conference last week, and honestly? I almost jumped out of my chair. Someone in the room said something that stopped me cold, and it's become one of the biggest lessons I'm bringing back to you this week — along with a story about a $230 million quarterback who won't take feedback, why "cheating off the smart kid" with AI is quietly ruining your podcast, and the subscription I found on my own bank statement that I'd been paying for and not even using. This episode is a mashup of my talk at Empowered Podcasting Conference 3 in Charlotte and everything I picked up just from being in the room. Let's get into it.
It's Your Show. Own It.
This is the one that made me want to stand up. Someone in a session said, "Well, I can't ask my guest to keep their answers short." Yes, you can. It's your show. If you're doing interviews, you're the goalie — it's your job to keep anything that doesn't serve your audience out of the episode. And if a guest rambles, that's usually on the host, not the guest. Give your guest a target before you hit record: who you're talking to, and whether you want short, medium, or long answers. A guest who doesn't get a target from the host should ask for one. Own your show. Set the boundaries. Your audience is who you're protecting.
What Actually Makes Content Remarkable
My talk was about what makes a podcast good, and I focused on what makes any content remarkable. I walked through a few movies to prove it:
Saving Private Ryan — that D-Day opening wasn't new information (we all knew WWII was brutal), it was a new way of presenting it. People talked about it because nobody had seen it shown like that.
The Sixth Sense — a tiny budget that beat big blockbusters like The Lone Ranger because of one twist: we don't find out Bruce Willis's character is dead until the end. People walked out of the theater and called a friend to say "you have to see this." That's the goal — content remarkable enough that it spreads on word of mouth alone.
Gone with the Wind — a 1939 movie with an actual intermission, and people still talk about the burning of Atlanta (a real fire on the studio backlot, no CGI) and that last line — "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" — which had audiences clutching their pearls. Again, something people had not seen before.
Star Wars — I saw it eleven times as a kid, and even when half the theater had already seen it multiple times, everybody still cheered when the Death Star blew up. That's not just about the special effects. That's about how it made people feel.
A podcast episode is content plus delivery — and delivery is you: your attitude, your confidence, your life skills. My rule of thumb for what makes a good episode: laugh, cry, think, groan, educate, or entertain. Save them time or save them money. Try to hit more than one of those in every episode.
The Most Underrated Skill in Podcasting: Listening
Everyone assumes the top skill is a great voice or being funny. It's not. It's your ability to listen — to your audience, and to feedback.
Case in point: The Cleveland Brown's quarterback, the one we paid $230 million despite a stack of off-field allegations. He's not good at his job. When fans booed him, his response was basically "you guys don't like me" — not "I need to get better," not "tell me more." He made it personal instead of taking it as information. I hear the same thing constantly from podcasters. I'll offer to help someone grow their show, ask which episode they want me to listen to, and they'll say "oh, it's not the content." If you're not willing to actually hear feedback, don't be surprised when your show doesn't grow.
The AI Shortcut That's Quietly Killing Your Voice
This is the one I need you to sit with. There's a real strategy going around called the outlier strategy: if you and a competitor share an audience, and one of their episodes way outperforms their normal numbers, you make your own version of that topic. Legitimate strategy.
Here's where it goes sideways — people are grabbing the transcript of that outlier video, feeding it to AI, and saying "rewrite this in my voice." And the whole reason they're doing a podcast in the first place is to be seen as a thought leader — using someone else's thoughts.
It might work about 80% of the time (I'm making that number up), and that missing 20% is the part that's actually, uniquely you. Mark Maron said it best: "You're not thinking your own thoughts. You're a hack with an excuse for why you're failing."
I'm not anti-AI — I use it to organize my own brain dumps into an outline. But when you let it write the content, you get exactly what everyone else already sounds like.
Led Zeppelin became Kingdom Come became Greta Van Fleet. Cinderella became Girl School. The copy is never as good as the original, and eventually the audience notices.
Which brings me to a phrase I have to credit to YouTuber Aprillynne Alter, because she said it better than I could: protect your intuition. When you let AI do all your thinking, you never actually process the information — and you lose your gut instinct for what your audience needs. That's exactly why I watched every single Dolly Parton video myself for last week's episode instead of asking AI to summarize them. I wanted that information in my head, not just in the output.
Cheating off the smart kid might get you the grade. It won't get you the understanding.
Own Your Audience — Don't Rent It From a Platform
I had a great conversation with email marketing expert Paul Gowder about this. I moved my main marketing list from Kit (formerly ConvertKit) over to Substack, and while my subscriber count is actually growing there, I can see in my stats that it's not driving nearly as much traffic to my website. Paul's question stopped me: "
What do platforms do once they get popular enough? They change the rules."
TikTok, Facebook, YouTube — every one of them eventually limits your reach to your own audience unless you pay up.
Email doesn't have an algorithm. Those are people who raised their hand and said "I want more." I'd rather have a 40% open rate on my newsletter than a meaningless "view" on YouTube.
And I export my list every single month just in case, because platforms can turn on you fast — there was a parenting podcast that got pulled off YouTube with zero warning, appealed to an AI system, got denied by that same AI, and only got reinstated after Podnews' James Cridland made it a public story. You don't want your show's survival to depend on someone shaming a platform into doing the right thing.
Audit Your Subscriptions — You're Probably Bleeding Money
My buddy Ralph Estep Jr. — "the content creator's accountant" — gave the keynote, and his advice was simple: go look at your podcast's checkbook.
So I did. In five minutes I found I'd been paying $57 a month for an SEO mastermind I hadn't attended in ages, plus $10 a month for an email address I don't even use anymore. Close to $100 a month, gone, just from things I forgot to cancel. This is exactly why you want a separate bank account for your podcast — every charge in there is tied to something you're using for the show, and it makes the leaks obvious. If you need a separate account I use both Sofi and Acorns.
Don't Copy the Gear. Be You.
One more story from my talk. We all think if we buy the same mic or use the same host as someone successful, we'll get their results. It's not the gear. The band Extreme had guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, who idolized Eddie Van Halen his whole career — and finally got to play Eddie's actual rig, in front of Eddie. He was sure he'd finally sound like his hero. Instead, he said it was "so horrible," because he just sounded like himself. Same thing happened in early podcasting — we all bought the same expensive mic because we wanted to sound like a famous podcaster. Lean into being you. You're already very good at it.
Bonus: Sometimes "Remarkable" Means Remarkably Bad
A tiny, ultra-low-budget Chinese film (reportedly made for around $200 by a mother and son on an iPhone) got pulled from theaters and mocked online as one of the worst movies ever. The memes were brutal. And because everyone was talking about it, curiosity took over — it ended up making an estimated $9.3 million. Remarkable works both ways.
Quick Update on Episode 1049
In

Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at age 80. While most tributes are focused on the music, this episode looks at something else entirely: Dolly Parton the businesswoman and entertainer. She sang at the Grand Ole Opry at 13 and was still building her empire seven decades later, which is rare in an industry where most acts have a five-to-ten-year run. As we like to say around here, success leaves clues, and Dolly left a lot of them. Below are 12 lessons pulled from her career, each one translated into something a podcaster can actually use.
Take Advantage of Opportunities When They Show Up
In the late 1960s, a teenage Dolly landed a spot on the syndicated Porter Wagoner Show, earning $60,000 a year — by her own account, more money than she'd ever seen. She could have stayed comfortable as Porter's sidekick. Instead, she used the platform to build her name, and when she'd gotten what she needed from it, she left in 1974 to build something that was actually hers. Wagoner threatened to have her dropped from her label and later sued her; she ended up paying roughly $1 million to settle it, and the relationship took years to repair before the two eventually reconciled (American Songwriter, Cheat Sheet).
Why it matters for your podcast: your show builds relationships, those relationships create opportunities, and taking advantage of those opportunities (a guest slot, a speaking gig, a collaboration) is what grows your audience — which creates more relationships. It's a loop, and it only works if you actually act when the opportunity shows up.
Build a Podcast Brand People Instantly Recognize
You knew Dolly when you saw her. Her wig, the rhinestones, the exaggerated glamour, her boobs, wasn't an accident. She said she based it on the town's "tramp."
Dolly's response: I wanted to look like her. I thought she was beautiful. Her best line, "It costs a lot of money to look this cheap" says it all. When Barbara Walters pushed her on it in a 1970s interview, essentially implying she looked like a hillbilly, Dolly shot back that she might "kick her in the shin" and laughed the whole way through it.
Why it matters for your podcast: a distinctive brand gets you noticed once. Celebrity, a striking name, a bold visual that earns the first click. What earns the return listener is the talent and substance behind it. Dolly had both, and so should your show.
Own Your Audience — Don't Rent It to a Platform
Dolly wrote "I Will Always Love You" in 1973 as a farewell to Porter Wagoner. When Elvis wanted to record it in 1974, his manager Colonel Tom Parker demanded the publishing rights as a condition for Elvis to record it. This was a standard (crappy) practice for an Elvis cut at the time.
Dolly said no, even though it was Elvis. Nearly two decades later, Whitney Houston's version spent 14 weeks at No. 1 and sold an estimated 20 million copies. Because Dolly still owned 100% of the publishing, that single song brought her roughly $10 million in royalties in the 1990s alone, and an estimated $20 million total from the Houston version according to Forbes (American Songwriter).
Why it matters for your podcast: As fellow podcaster Steve Stewart puts it, "Don't sell your audience to your sponsor, sell your sponsor on the value of your audience." The same logic applies to platforms: own your website, your domain, and your email list so no single network or app can take your audience away from you. It happens — YouTube pulled a top parenting podcast off the platform entirely (before reinstating it after public pressure). Dolly held onto her publishing because she knew the long game mattered more than a quick win. Hold onto your feed the same way. This is why an RSS feed is important. You can't be cancelled, and you can easily move to a new host if needed.
Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously
Long before a critic could land a joke, Dolly had already made it herself. On plastic surgery: "If I see something sagging, bagging, or dragging, I'm going to have it nipped, tucked, or sucked." Even the announcement of her passing carried her sense of humor forward, joking that she was finally ready to trade the rhinestones for something more comfortable.
Why it matters for your podcast: self-deprecating humor makes an audience like you more. If you can laugh at yourself — a mistake, dated gear, a rough first episode — listeners relax and warm up to you faster. Have fun with your show. Otherwise, you'll burn out on it.
Be Consistent — It Builds Trust
Dolly reportedly slept in her makeup in case she had to get up in the middle of the night for an emergency, because she never wanted to be seen without it. More importantly, she was always, unmistakably Dolly be it on stage or off, in an interview or in a duet, across 70 years of performing. People who met her said what you saw on stage is exactly what you got in person.
Why it matters for your podcast: consistency isn't just about your publishing schedule (though that matters too) — it's about your output staying recognizably you. A listener who hasn't tuned in for six months should know exactly what they're getting the moment they hit play.
Know Your Why
Dollywood already existed under a couple of generic names before Dolly bought into it in 1986. She didn't just license her name and collect a check — she built it to bring jobs to her hometown region in Tennessee, rooting the business in something true about her instead of something generic and scalable. Today it generates an estimated $180–580 million a year, with her stake alone valued around $165 million.
Why it matters for your podcast: plenty of celebrities slap their name on a generic product — a tequila brand, a theme park, a template — and it doesn't work because the "why" isn't real. If you're just copying someone else's show format and putting your name on it, it's probably not going to land. Know why you're actually doing this.
Secondly if you put your name behind it, it better be a positive reflection of you (think about this when it comes to sponsors). If you say a product is great, and your audience buys it and it's not, they won't buy anything else from you as your integrity is shot.
Experiment With New Formats Without Losing Your Identity
Dolly moved from country into pop in the '70s (9 to 5 and more), then made the bluegrass albums she couldn't make earlier in her career because they were "too niche" — as she put it, "I had to get rich so I could come back and sound poor" (BrainyQuote). She went into TV, movies, and near the end of her life a Broadway musical. It was based on her own story, for which she wrote much of the score (so you could say she liked to stay busy).
She initially tried to withdraw her name from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame consideration, saying she hadn't "earned that right," then was inducted anyway and leaned all the way in, dueting with Judas Priest's Rob Halford at the ceremony (Rolling Stone, Fox News). She later recorded "Please Please Please" with Sabrina Carpenter — a genre-crossing pairing where each artist's fans discovered the other (Rolling Stone).
Why it matters for your podcast: every new genre, format, or collaboration was still unmistakably Dolly. That's the model — try new things, but stay recognizably yourself. And notice the audience-sharing angle: pairing with an artist (or podcaster) who has an adjacent audience introduces you to people who'd never have found you otherwise. That's exactly what cross-promotion with a show in your niche can do for you.
Outsource What You're Not Good At
When Dolly wrote and starred in the 1986 TV movie A Smoky Mountain Christmas, she knew the script and the performance were her strengths — but directing wasn't, so she brought in Henry Winkler (yes, the Fonz) to direct (Yahoo News).
Why it matters for your podcast: do the parts of your show you're genuinely good at and enjoy, and hand off the rest — editing, show notes, technical setup — to someone who does it better than you.
Give Back to Build Loyalty
Despite her wealth, Dolly gave away enormous sums, saying she prayed for "enough to share and enough to spare." In 1995 she launched the Imagination Library in...

What is Your Rock Bottom Podcast Downloads Number?
Everybody talks about growing their audience. Nobody talks about the number where they'd quietly give up.
This month's Question of the Month flips the growth conversation on its head: what's the smallest number of downloads that would keep you making your show — and if you dropped below it, would you quit, or try to fix it? The answers from School of Podcasting listeners are surprisingly close... and my answer might not be a number at all.
Also in this episode: a guest-pitch so bad it somehow involves a U-Haul dealership, and a heads-up on a booking-platform trick you'll want to know before you pitch yourself as a guest anywhere.
In this episode
This month's Question of the Month: what's your download floor?
Steve Stewart says he'd think about quitting under 25 downloads an episode — but here's why he probably wouldn't
Frank Bravo is already running on "10s" of downloads, and explains why that number doesn't bother him
Ralph Estep Jr. went from 20 downloads to over 1,000 — but what actually keeps him going isn't the number
Dave's answer: which of his 30+ podcasts he let die, which ones he kept, and why it's rarely about the download count
The 6-episode survey test — how to know if it's time to change your show or just accept where it's at
Scott Johnson (What Was That Like) shares the worst guest pitch he's ever received
A warning about how some guests are gaming booking platforms like PodMatch — and how to vet who you let on your show

Links mentioned
School of Podcasting — use code LISTENER for a discount on monthly, quarterly, or yearly plans
PodPage — this episode's sponsor
Steve Stewart — Podcast Editor Academy / Podcast Editors Mastermind
Frank Bravo — Your Tech Makeover
Ralph Estep Jr. — ralphestepjr.com / new show: Becoming Financially Confident (launching Aug 31)
Scott Johnson — What Was That Like
York - Welcome to Earth Stories
PodMatch
PodcastGuest.com
Pitch a Podcast
Building a Better Dave
Marketing Musician
Weekly Web Tools
New To Cooking

This content may contain affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if you purchase through these links at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products or services I trust and believe will provide value to you. Thank you for your support!
Mentioned in this episode:
Where Will I Be?
I love meeting you when I'm out at events. Here are some of my next events:
Podcast Movement September 17-18
Podindy November 7th (use the coupon pacer at podindy.com)
Where Will I Be?
Question of the Month: Constructive and Deconstructive Feedback
This month we are talking feefdback. What is the most constructive or deconstructive (or both) piece of feedback you've received. If you haven't asked for feedback, why not? I need your answer by September 25th (late entries won't be accepted) go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/question and be sure to mention your show and your website address so I can link to it in the show notes.
Question of the Month
Podpage Email Alerts
Podpage just launched a feature called Episode Alerts. It automatically emails your subscribers the moment a new episode goes live — no third-party email tool needed. When you publish, Podpage sends the email, links listeners straight to the episode, routes replies to your own inbox, and handles unsubscribes automatically. They also run every email address through validation and monitor bounces/spam complaints to protect your sender reputation.

It's not meant to replace a full newsletter platform — no drip campaigns or segmentation — just a simple "hey, new episode's up" notification.

It's available for Pro and Elite users, with monthly sending caps of 500 emails on Pro and 5,000 on Elite.

For more information see https://www.podpage.com/updates/introducing-episode-alerts/
Podpage
Join the #1 Podcast Education Site - The School of Podcasting
Adam Curry is the co-founder of Podcasting (and the co-host of the No Agenda Show). When asked about learning how to podcast Adam said, "The place to go with the guy who has taught more people how to podcast than anybody I know - Dave Jackson, School of Podcasting.com"
School of Podcasting

You Down With YPP?
Episode Description:
I break down YouTube’s latest changes to its Partner Program, including doubled watch-hour requirements and higher Shorts monetization thresholds ahead of the February 2027 deadline. I also bring in YouTube expert Adam Ivey’s take on why the real story isn’t necessarily the new criteria, and I share my own channel’s numbers so you can set realistic expectations for your own YouTube journey.
Then the AI kids stop by for story time as I take a look at Spotify’s decade-long history of making big podcasting promises—and quietly failing to deliver on them. From a scrapped hosting partnership to a Creator Fund that never paid a cent, there’s plenty to unpack.
Plus, Ray Ortega drops by with the shortest—and most accurate—definition of “podcast” you’ll ever hear.
YouTube Partner Program (YPP) changes, effective February 1, 2027
Watch-hour requirement doubles: 4,000 to 8,000 hours in the past year (new creators only; existing YPP members are grandfathered in)
Shorts monetization threshold doubles: 10 million to 20 million qualified views in 90 days to get in, then a rolling 10 million views every 90 days to maintain earnings
Full monetization tier: 1,000 subscribers, $100 payment threshold
Lower tier (500 subscribers): unlocks YouTube Shopping (affiliate) and channel memberships, requires 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts views

The real story behind the changes
Adam Ivy's stat: 67% of YouTube creators make less than $10,000/year
YouTube's stated pivot: broadening revenue beyond ads, with bonuses for YouTube Shopping, brand-deal incentives, and trend-based earning boosts
YouTube says it expects to pay creators more in 2027 than 2026: money is shifting, not shrinking
Steve Stewart (Podcast Editor Academy): "Don't just sell your audience to sponsors, sell sponsors on how great your audience is"

Is YouTube worth it? The data
Sounds Profitable's Podcast Atlas (slide 23): Clips lead viewers to watch a specific episode (30% often/always, 81% at least sometimes) and to become regular listeners (33% often/always, 84% at least sometimes)
Dave's real channel numbers: 3,523 subscribers, ~$2.49 per 1,000 views, one video with 115 views earned 25 cents
Bottom line: YouTube ad revenue is icing, not cake. Don't budget groceries on it

Spotify: a bedtime story for the AI kids
May 2015: Spotify launches podcasts through a small group of hosting "partners" (Libsyn, Blubrry), framed as a growth opportunity, not monetization
Spotify initially insists on hosting the media files itself rather than letting partners host. Partners build custom engineering to comply, then Spotify reverses course
2019: Spotify buys Anchor for $150 million, turning former hosting partners into competitors overnight, with free hosting
Spotify quietly submits shows to Apple Podcasts under its own account, hiding stats from creators and sparking creator frustration (often aimed at consultants, not Spotify)
2020: Megaphone acquired for $235 million. 2021: Whooshkaa acquired and folded into Megaphone, then shut down
2021: Betty Labs acquired, becomes Greenroom (Spotify's Clubhouse competitor)
2021: "New Era of Podcast Monetization": paid subscriptions, Open Access Platform, Spotify Audience Network announced
Mid-2021: Greenroom launches with a Creator Fund promised for live audio creators. Payment mechanics never disclosed
2021: Music + Talk announced ("play music in your podcast"), restricted to the Spotify app, paying subscribers only, after listening to the full episode
September 2021: Q&A and Polls launch, pitched as "the future of podcasting is interactive"
January 2022: In-house production studio "Studio Four" shut down with layoffs
April 2022: Greenroom rebrands to Spotify Live; Creator Fund confirmed to have never launched, quietly shelved
March 2023: Anchor rebranded to Spotify for Podcasters
April 2023: Spotify Live shut down entirely, two years after the original Greenroom launch
February 2024: Music + Talk and Anchor's recording tools killed; users redirected to Riverside
July 2024: Q&A and Polls shut down, replaced with Comments
Spotify's "walled garden" habits: video and transcripts only available on Spotify, resistance to RSS since it sends listeners off-platform
2026: Skip Ahead ad-skipping button testing begins, available only to Premium subscribers, while advertisers still pay for the ad
Audiobooks added, bundled with music, resulting in lower royalty payments to musicians

What it actually takes to make money on Spotify
1,000 Spotify audience members (last 30 days)
2,000 Spotify hours consumed (last 30 days)
At least 3 published episodes
Free alternatives exist too: Buzzsprout (90 days free), RSS.com, Red Circle

Also in this episode:
Ray Ortega's shortest definition of a podcast: "An RSS feed with audio or video content"
Dave will be at the Empowered Podcasting Conference. Say hello if you see him

Links:
Podnews (the definitive investigative piece): https://podnews.net/update/greenroom-creator-fund-mirage
Hollywood Reporter (original confirmation): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/spotify-greenroom-creator-fund-live-audio-1235132234/
TechCrunch (Spotify's official statement): https://techcrunch.com/?p=2302547
Tubefilter (stock price angle): https://www.tubefilter.com/2022/04/19/meta-live-audio-rooms-spotify-green-ro
Spotify's own support doc: https://support.spotify.com/al/creators/article/understanding-skip-ahead-button/
Podnews (the deepest industry-side reporting): https://podnews.net/article/spotify-threat-ad-skipping
Hollywood Reporter (advertiser reaction): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/spotify-new-ad-skipping-feature-1236670480/
Forbes (scale/downloads context): https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielalinzainescu/2026/08/10/spotify-tests-ad-skip-button-that-could-upend-podcast-advertising/
Variety (original 2024 reclassification): https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/spotify-music-audiobook-bundle-lower-royalty-for-songwriters-1235974942/
Music Tech (MLC lawsuit filed): https://musictech.com/news/industry/spotify-royalties-lawsuit-audiobook-bundling/
Music Business Worldwide ($3.1bn NMPA projection): https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nmpa-says-spotify-bundling-move-could-cost-music-publishers-3-1bn-through-2032/
Music Business Worldwide (lawsuit dismissed): https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-wins-audiobook-bundling-lawsuit-as-court-dismisses-legal-action-brought-by-the-mlc/
Variety (ruling coverage w/ judge's quote): https://variety.com/2025/music/news/spotify-wins-lawsuit-bundling-royalties-1236289823/
Time (FTC complaint, $150M NMPA estimate):