The podcast industry has more than 200 million listeners, but the road to profitability for creators and platforms is still full of challenges. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the podcast industry’s monetization model, platform dilemma, and new opportunities and problems brought about by the trend of video.
On April 9, due to the exposure of arrears of interns’ salaries, the “Out of Time” podcast team, which has more than 1 million subscriptions on the network, had to disclose its income data: the team’s net income in 2024 will only be 130,000 yuan.
Two weeks later, the head audio platform “Himalaya” once again reported the news of being acquired by Tencent Music, and some media said that compared with three years ago, Himalaya’s valuation has been cut in half; Subsequently, Himalaya replied that “I don’t know about “selling myself” yet.”
Source: Screenshot of Weibo
From creators to platforms, the Chinese podcast industry has been developing for many years, who has made money in it? With the entry of platforms such as Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, can the podcast track usher in a new “money path”?
01. Who makes money?
Since the birth of the form of “podcast”, various narrative genres have been inclusive and merged. If you click on the hot lists of major podcast platforms, you will find that almost all the most popular programs cannot escape the genres of “murder and arsonist ghost stories” and “making money and feminism talking about business”.
These popular tracks have many original head podcast IPs. Recently, the “Out of Time” podcast, which was on the hot search because of wage arrears, is a cultural rambling program from a female perspective.
According to “Fun Solution”, different podcast categories have considerable differences in the way and efficiency of monetization. Supernatural and crime story categories have a low listening threshold and a wider audience, making it easier to run through paid albums. “Fun Solution Business” noticed that ancient ghost story IPs such as “Zhang Zhen Tells Stories” have paid albums serialized on the Himalayas for as much as 99 yuan, and one of them has been played more than 50 million.
Source: Screenshot of Small Universe
However, for more serious podcast segments such as pan-commercial and cultural ramblings, which have a higher threshold for listening, paid listening does not work. Feng Yi (pseudonym), who has been a technology anchor for 8 years, said bluntly, “After all, everyone is very tired after a day’s work, who wants to spend money to listen to lectures, it is better to listen to some interesting relaxation.” ”
Perhaps because the accompanying nature of audio is naturally suitable for the discussion of serious and in-depth topics, business and cultural programs have always been the majority of podcasts.
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According to the “2024 New Observations on Chinese Podcasts” released by Just Pod, only 24.6% of creators with more than 1 year of production experience have tried paid programs. “Fun Solution” noticed that in addition to ghost stories, most of the best-selling paid programs on the platform rely on the influence of independent broadcasting of personal IP, such as Liang Wendao’s “Eight and a Half Points” and Yang Tianzhen’s “High Emotional Intelligence Formula”, and the number of payers can exceed 10,000, while the paid programs of the original podcast team are far from reaching such a level.
Therefore, most serious podcasts such as “making money feminism and talking about business” choose to cooperate with brands to monetize. podcast users are extremely receptive to soft and wide; Just Pod’s report shows that only 0.6% of listeners will opt out of the show when they hear an ad, and nearly 30% will choose to listen to the entire ad.
Source: justpod report
Podcast hosts Yang Tiannan and Sisi once mentioned in a conversation that podcasts are a naturally suitable platform for carrying “stories” and are suitable for brands that need to tell stories and convey values.
It is rumored that some luxury brands even have an annual budget of nearly 10 million in the “small universe”; In addition, some erotic brands, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies that are subject to the regulation of other social media platforms also favor podcasts as a medium.
Zhu Feng, the founder of “Relish”, said that when the podcast market first rose, new consumer brands such as coffee and mixed wine were more invested, and now brands in different fields are contacting podcasts and placing them according to the vertical groups covered by podcasts. Technology and business chats will receive promotion from Internet companies such as Alibaba and Pinduoduo, and some film and television entertainment podcasts will receive interviews and cooperation from dramas and theatrical films.
However, podcasts with different volumes have significant differences in their offerings. Zhu Feng mentioned that now the head or institutional podcasts will cooperate according to the price coordinated between the industry, but many anchors at the waist and tail may not have experience in commercialization, and the platform cannot help much.
“Fun Solution” learned that the quotation for a single episode of the head podcast is usually between 10-200,000 yuan. According to a previous report by “Entertainment Capital”, the business quotation of a podcast with 10,000 views is generally around 1-15,000 yuan. “Out of Time” has nearly 500,000 subscriptions in the small universe, with an average price of 38,889 yuan for a single oral broadcast advertisement and a quotation of 133,000 yuan for a customized single episode, which is already at the head level.
Source: Screenshot of Small Universe
In addition to brand cooperation and program payment, some podcasters are also trying to monetize by attracting traffic to the private domain or helping brands hold offline events. But overall, “making money” is still the biggest problem faced by Chinese podcast creators. Guan Yadi, founder of the “Ecstasy Podcast Festival”, said that most podcast programs are still difficult to make a profit, which is basically the consensus of front-line practitioners in the industry.
02. Is podcasting a “good business”?
In the wage arrears turmoil of “Out of Time”, the most shocking thing for many netizens is that the quotation of the head podcast team is far lower than that of the head creators in the field of short videos and official account graphics. According to the “Fun Solution” business, the head account on the WeChat public platform and Xiaohongshu has a price of more than 400,000 yuan for business content, which is almost three times the commercial price of a single episode of “Out of Time”.
Such a revenue gap stems from the small scale of the podcast track itself, and on the other hand, it is also related to the backward commercialization of the podcast platform as a whole.
The “elite” attributes of podcasts do attract a group of high-quality users, but this also means that podcasts have not really entered the mass market. Just Pod’s report shows that domestic podcast listeners have high education and strong spending power, and are concentrated in first-tier and new first-tier cities with more consumption vitality, with an average monthly income of 16,136 yuan.
According to the survey of CCTV’s financial information network program “Podcast New “Sound” Machine”, the number of Chinese podcast programs has increased 6 times since 2024 compared with three years ago, and the number of listeners of Chinese podcasts has exceeded 220 million; Although podcasts have “revived” in recent years and users have grown rapidly, the total number of users and monthly active users are far from those of video platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili.
Source: justpod report
The volume of users restricts the ceiling of market size. According to a report by Statista, China’s podcast advertising market revenue in 2024 will be about 3.3 billion yuan, which is a fraction of the annual advertising revenue of short video platforms.
Part-time, Buddhist small creative teams like “Out of Time” abound in the podcast market. According to “Fun Solution”, only about 20% of domestic authors create podcasts full-time, and most of the creative teams rely on the enthusiasm of “generating electricity for love”; And only a small number of teams with strong execution and commercialization capabilities can rely solely on podcasts to make a surplus.
Zhu Feng believes that the platform is the biggest responsibility for the embarrassment of the commercial value of podcasts. If a medium is said to be so worthless, the platform should reflect on whether it is not helping the anchor to do a good job in this regard.
Similar to Xiaohongshu’s “Dandelion”, Douyin’s “Giant Star Map”, Himalaya’s “Honey Sound” and Xiaoyu’s “Chasing Light”, etc., are all service platforms that help brands connect with creators. Zhu Feng believes that the key to the service platform is to become a link between the anchor and the brand, in addition to attracting the brand, it is also necessary to complete some market education.
“The cognition of many advertisers needs to be cultivated. Nowadays, many Party A still estimate podcast programs according to the number of subscriptions on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, but how can a podcast episode be at least an hour long and a short video a few minutes a time? ”
In fact, podcast platforms are also struggling to get out of the quagmire of commercialization.
Internet audio platforms such as Lychee FM, Dragonfly FM, and NetEase Cloud all have podcast channels, among which Himalaya has the largest user base. According to Himalaya’s updated prospectus last year, in 2023, Himalaya’s average monthly active users in all scenarios will reach 303 million, and the average monthly active paying users on mobile terminals will reach 15.8 million, accounting for a quarter of the market share of the domestic audio industry.
However, the country’s largest audio platform did not turn a profit until 2023. Himalaya updated its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the third time in the first half of 2024, and during the period from 2021 to 2023, the company’s operating income was 5.857 billion yuan, 6.061 billion yuan and 6.163 billion yuan respectively, and the adjusted net profit was -718 million yuan, -296 million yuan and 224 million yuan respectively. It is worth mentioning that the prospectus is currently in a state of invalidation.
Source: Himalaya screenshot
“Original podcasts” have been a key expansion sector of Himalaya in the past two years, but recently some employees told “Phoenix.com” that due to profit pressure, podcasts, as a content-based business, are very conservative in their investment at the content level.
Himalaya’s main revenue comes from membership subscriptions, and as the entire company focuses on “pulling members”, in Q1 2025, the core indicators of the podcast business have changed from DAU growth and user consumption frequency to “only look at commercialization”. Next, Himalaya is likely to speed up the adjustment of the business ecology of podcasts on the station.
In addition to Himalaya, Lychee FM, which was listed on the US stock market as early as 2020, is also an audio platform that has been deeply involved in the podcast business for many years. According to “Qujie Business”, the main source of revenue for Lychee Group in 2024 is still audio entertainment services, that is, virtual gifts for users, and the podcast business does not bring much revenue; In addition, lychee will also fall into the dilemma of turning from profit to loss in 2023.
Source: Screenshot of lychee
In addition to the pan-audio platform, the podcast community represented by “Small Universe” has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of volume in the past two years. Although the number of users (about 6 million monthly active users at the end of 2023) is inferior to that of the pan-audio platform, it is better than the strong community atmosphere. Many anchors have said that although their shows have a higher number of broadcasts in the Himalayas, they can often gain more effective user feedback in the small universe.
Shu Yulong, CEO of Xiaoyu, said in the first half of last year that Xiaoyu currently has some commercial income, but has not yet begun to make a profit.
This also means that no platform can be self-sufficient in the podcast business alone.
03. Accelerate the “breaking of the circle”
Although the podcast market is not “rich”, more and more social media platforms are already eyeing this business.
In 2024, graphic platforms such as WeChat, Douban, and Weibo will improve their audio functions or launch creative support programs; Xiaohongshu vigorously promotes the videoization of podcasts and encourages anchors on the small universe to come to Xiaohongshu to post notes for live broadcasts.
Recently, Bilibili and Himalaya have also made a layout on “video podcasts”.
Bilibili’s latest video podcast support plan gives tens of millions of traffic and cash support to new anchors, and also invites a large number of head anchors on the small universe to come to Bilibili to release video versions of the program. Himalaya also launched the first video podcast program “Walking Thoughts”, which tells the stories of 6 ordinary people. “Fun Solution” noticed that this program was titled and broadcast by Pacific Insurance, which is Himalaya’s new attempt at the commercialization of podcasts.
Source: Himalayas
“Fun Solution” learned that some brands will also have the willingness to expose videos when cooperating with podcasts. Compared with audio, video has an additional dimension to reach users when disseminating, and brands also have richer communication space, so it seems that the ceiling for video podcast monetization is higher than that of audio podcasts.
Lao Yuan, founder of Podcast Commune, said that after Bilibili vigorously promoted video podcasts, a group of small and medium-sized podcast creators often consulted him about the production of video podcasts, and according to Lao Yuan’s estimates, about 25% of the podcast team now comes to the recording studio to record the program at the same time when they record the program.
However, videotonizing podcasts is not as simple as recording and playing. Many anchors said that the essence of video podcasts is not podcasts, but medium and long-form videos, which need to adapt to the communication characteristics of new platforms.
Sisi, the director of the podcast column “The First Business Lesson for Girls”, once tried to videographize the program in the form of live dialogue, but found that the effect was very poor, “The audio focuses on companionship, but the video is not good, it is difficult for users to watch videos for more than an hour, and video podcasts are very test of the narrative rhythm, and there needs to be explosive points and golden sentences.” ”
In fact, many teams that are deeply involved in podcasts choose podcasts as the first battlefield because they do not have the ability to make videos.
Zhu Feng said that Bilibili had invited “Relish” to create a video podcast very early, but the team has not stepped into the video field. “On the one hand, most of the anchors have their own jobs, and they have a certain industry status, so it is inconvenient to show their faces in the show.” Zhu Feng also mentioned that if it is not presented in the form of native live broadcast, videoization means that the entire creative logic will have to be overturned, and the entire content structure will change from topic selection to post-editing. Rather than videoization as a ‘transformation’ for the podcast team, I think it may be more accurate to ‘change careers’.
“Every day is breaking the circle, every year is the first year”, many people in the industry describe the podcast industry in this way. Today, video has brought new business opportunities to the podcast industry, but it has also brought more problems and challenges, especially for small teams that already have limited production capacity and generate power for love. Whether video platforms that enter the game with traffic advantages can help creators find a new balance between content tone and commercial demands deserve further attention.
