Is Canadian podcasting in trouble?

Welcome to Cancon. This is a bit of a meta episode. It's a little bit of inside

baseball, but I figure that if you're listening to this podcast, you care about Canadian

podcasting. And you might like to know how much I make for doing this podcast every week,

and how much our producers, Katie Lawer and Matt Kesselman make for doing this show every

week for you. The answer, my friends, is zip. Nothing. We make absolutely nothing. We do it

because we love it and we hope maybe one day it might possibly potentially hopefully be financially

viable to make money with an independent podcast in Canada. Right now for I would estimate off

the top of my head and I'll ask my guest this in a moment. For about 99.9% of Canadian podcasters

that is the reality. It wasn't what we expected some time ago when Canadian podcasting began

to pick up steam, but it is where we find out ourselves. So I thought we'd have a conversation

today. And again, as I mentioned, a meta conversation because my guest today is the producer

of Cancon. Katie Lawer now Katie. It's not only a producer of Cancon. She is a producer of many shows.

She is a longtime veteran of the Canadian podcast landscape. She runs Pod the North,

which is now a production company as well as Canada's leading podcast newsletter. She has worked

in podcast audience growth and analysis. There is no real corner of the business in this country that

she hasn't touched. She touches every corner of this podcast. And now she joins me as a guest slash

co-host. Katie, how are you doing? I'm doing really well. Thank you for the lovely introduction.

You are most welcome. You really took the ball and ran with the whole voice of Canadian podcasting

in this country. Yeah, I really like to feel the struggle. I've been deep in the trenches for

over a decade. I was going to say, do you regret it now? I don't necessarily regret it because

one thing about me is I can't stop talking. So this is the only possible industry I could ever

survive in. That's an app description of podcasters everywhere, I think. Let's talk about the golden

days. Both you and I were around for them. And I think this is what we want to introduce before

we talk about the challenges facing Canadian podcasting. And listen, this is a microcosm of the

challenges that face so much of Canadian media that everybody talks about right now. But Katie,

take me back. What was it now? Seven or eight years ago, when did the podcast boom really start

in Canada? And at the time, what was that climate like? So I would say the podcast boom really started

in Canada in like 2015. And that notably is when CBC launched a slate of podcasts. I think that's

when somebody knows something came out. And that was basically Canada's version of cereal. So cereal

was out at the time. Canada exploded with its true crime podcast. And then about a year later,

Rogers released their slate of podcasts and sort of the boom began. I think you were around at

that time. So and then I would say there was a second boom that came. And that was around 2020,

which would have been around six years ago. And that was because everybody was at home with

nothing to do with a lot of thoughts spiraling around in their heads. And so what better thing to do

than to start a podcast? So those are the two main booms that I see have happened in Canada.

It was a good time to be a podcaster in 2020. I can tell you, we watched the downloads just go

and it was so nice back then. Well, I mean, it was coming off the back of human misery,

but other than that, it was really nice. Listen, when CBC was coming out, Rogers,

a chorus, a whole bunch of other people were getting into podcasting. What were the hopes of how

the industry might grow in this country? What kind of assumptions were those decisions based on?

Well, I see a lot of those decisions based off of what was happening for our neighbors to the

south, which is a classic Canadian story. But what was happening was shows like this American life,

serial, Gimlett podcast was really blowing up the daily. The daily. I mean, listen,

we straight ahead copied the daily in Canada. I can say that now. We straight up did, but we beat

CBC to it. So that was fun. I will say like I think we straight up copied a lot of the things that

were we saw were happening in the US saying like, Hey, what if we produce the Canadian version of

this? Because there was a lot of success in the States, we saw a lot of sponsors and advertisers

supporting those shows and giving people money to make podcasts. So of course, we were like, well,

we know we have a lot of good stuff to say here and we can see the models that seem to be doing well.

So what if we copy them and do the Canadian version? Of course, we should be making lots of money here.

Alas. Alas. And we'll get to why and how Alas later. But looking at the industry now several years

later, what happened in this country or didn't happen in this country to change those assumptions

about where the industry was going? Well, what happened over the last few years is that a lot of

people realized I can make a podcast podcasting is incredibly accessible. And it doesn't have to sound

something that's coming out of public radio or a major broadcaster. I can make a podcast for any

niche and I will get engaged listenership. And that happened. People started making a variety of

different kinds of podcasts for a variety of different kinds of audiences and getting engaged

listenership. Now, is that engaged listenership? You know, tens of thousands of people, not usually,

especially in Canada, but people were leaving good reviews, emailing those people and all of that

stuff. So Canada now has an abundance of different kinds of podcasts being created here. However,

a lot of these podcasts are not thriving whatsoever. And I think you and I can relate to this where

there is really little to no funding for any podcasters here, whether it could be from sponsors

and Canadian brands who are willing to support these shows or from government grants. Right now,

there are no government grants for Canadian podcasts other than one, which is from the Indigenous

Screen Office, which is supporting Indigenous podcasts, which is amazing. And they've said a

really good standard for that. I think and hope we see broadly come to Canada. And before we keep

talking about the business, because this is an episode about the business of content and where

the money flows or doesn't flow, I want to say like nothing we're talking about today is to

cast aspersions on the general quality of Canadian podcasting because there are terrific shows out

there that get tens, not tens of thousands, tens of listeners, hundreds. Yeah, hundreds is probably

a little more fair. It doesn't make them bad. It's just the reality in this country. You've done

podcast audience work. So have I. I know I keep some stats in my head that I like to use to explain

to people just how small the market is, but like Katie, what makes a show a quote unquote,

like top Canadian podcast? How many downloads do you need? Okay. So most people think about

downloads and the success of a show based on downloads based off of what advertisers want.

Yes. So an advertiser in order to sponsor show is looking for a podcast that has 10,000 downloads

per month. How many Canadian shows have that number of downloads? You know, I think the number of

Canadian shows hitting that threshold is probably two handfuls and there I would say are thousands

of Canadian podcasts up there are at least thousands of people involved just based off of the people

that subscribe to my newsletter. So I don't think it's very easy for us to be hitting that threshold,

especially for podcasts like ours. Canadian podcasts for Canadian listeners are audience sizes going

to be much smaller than if we were targeting something internationally or something that we wanted

American listeners to be listening to. I want American listeners to listen to this show. They could

use it. Yeah, they could use it, but it's really difficult for folks like us, right? To get to that

10,000 downloads a month threshold. Yes. And if any advertiser is listening, we're not that far off

from that number. We just need a different way of thinking about the success of podcasts. And this

goes into a whole nerdy tangent that I can go into, but downloads aren't like a real metric anyway.

They are just a measurement of delivery. The way of measuring success of podcasts in this industry

is also really messed up. So there's a lot of work to do to fix it. And I think if we were to fix it,

Canada could be leading the way in the most transparent, possible sponsorship model in the world.

I'm going to stop Katie from going down that rabbit hole because I've been down that. Yeah,

it's a conversation for another audience who are really, really, really, deeply invested in

metrics and how we measure things. It's a fascinating conversation if you're really into it.

With that lack of funding, whether it's from the government, from private sponsors,

from crowdfunded, what is the reality? Listen, there are folks who are doing this as a hobby, right?

They love it and they want to talk. Maybe they want to talk with their friends. Maybe they want

to make a podcast for their friends or they care about this little niche corner of the world.

And they have 80 people who listen to the show and love it and that's fine for them.

But there are a lot of independent podcasters, Katie, trying to make a living in Canada right now.

And how do they do it? I would say there's three main ways. One is you get the government to sponsor

you and give you at least $50,000 to produce a podcast where you can take some time off from work

or at least feel like you've been compensated for your time. But that doesn't happen, right?

That doesn't happen. The second way is for a regular sponsor to come onto your podcast and

start sponsoring the show and you do mid-roll ads for that sponsor. I think you just said it, Jordan,

that doesn't happen. And then the third way, I think, is really like building a brand around

not just a podcast, but building a show. And so that means producing not just audio content for

people to listen to, but you are building an audience on social media, on YouTube,

you're building just like a whole brand. And that means you quit your job and focus solely

on putting out this content. And in order for that to happen, you kind of need the grants and

you kind of need the sponsors. So it's difficult to make that happen. Or maybe you just have like

your trust fund kid and you can just live off of your parents' money and start producing stuff,

you know? So it's really tricky to make a living off of this medium or you can become a professional

podcast producer and get paid to make other people's shows. This is the other aspect of the business

in Canada that we can talk about very briefly. A lot of the people making money, and I know these

people, you know these people, making money, podcasting as a career in Canada, are making

shows for companies. They're making branded podcasts that are brought to you by whomever

that have a corporate message. Sometimes they're really well done. Peace people put a lot of effort

into them. They're craftsmen and women, but you're making a podcast for a brand and they ultimately

have approval of all of your content and what you say and the message that they want to put out there.

But that is like the way you make a living while you make the podcast you really want to make on

the side. Yes, I have no other things to say. That is the way to do it. The problem is you are now

under, you know, the eyeballs of a corporate overlord who wants to know why there are no new

sales coming in from your podcast. Why only 25 people have listened to the last episode?

Yeah, and why nobody is enjoying listening to their CEO recording from their earbuds. So there's

a lot of nuances to talk about there. Let's talk about the audience though, which are the people

actually listening to this show, as you mentioned, probably. And you don't even, I don't even have

to ask to me. I can tell you 90, 96, 97% Canadian, obviously. What podcasts do Canadians listen to?

Because obviously it's not, this is what we've talked about. And I spoke about this with

Michael Geist on our first episode when we talked about Canadian content in the streaming era,

right? Podcasts do not come out over the radio airwaves where you're choosing between whatever's

on the eight stations or 15 stations that you get. Canadians can listen to any podcast in the

world regardless of where it's made. So what podcast do Canadians listen to? So I think there's

four major genres that they end up listening to. One of them, of course, French language podcasts.

And then the other one is news. That's like the major one sports. And these are the genres that

are Canadian that people are listening to. These are, well, it's hard to say actually. I don't

think I have the stats on that in particular, but I can tell you what genres Canadians are

tend to listen to the most. And that is news, sports, French language shows, and I'm pretty sure

true crime is the other one. And I will say like this is something that Canada is producing in

abundance. Mainly also due to our, our public broadcaster, they are producing show after show

of true crime podcasts. And they're winning awards. They are getting internationally recognized.

Like Canada is putting out good true crime content. The other thing I will say about the content

that Canadians consume. And again, you're listening to this podcast, your Canadian. Go check your

shows. Go check. Look through the shows in your queue. I've done it with mine. Come away a little

depressed sometimes. How many of them are actually made in Canada? You know, you ask Canadians about

what their favorite shows are. There are some CBC shows on that list. There are some sports podcasts

because we like hockey and hockey podcasts are made here. There are some true crime shows on

there that are made in Canada. But by and large, you know, the giant, giant hits in America

are still the giant, giant hits in Canada. So all that money is flowing out of the Canadian industry

and into whatever companies are monetizing the American shows that we listen to.

I have nothing else to say about that either. I mean, it's true. And I will say there is

an interesting thing that I've noticed in my career as a producer is the amount of Canadians

working on those shows. I will mention one in particular 99% invisible, which is notoriously a

go-to listen, listen to podcast. I know at least three Canadian producers who work on that show

regularly. So it is very interesting to me that if you want to be a career producer in Canada

who's making a solid living, you have to work for an American show to find that.

Matt Kesselman also produces American podcasts. I mean, he's a great,

a great sound designer. And listen, man needs to make a living. Like we've been talking about

it's difficult to do it just working on Canadian shows.

Talk about the ecosystem. So CBC is the giant, the monolith, the, you know, one true thing in

Canadian podcasting that is like worldwide acclaimed hit after hit. Great. Like amazing. Super proud

of our public broadcaster. It's a conversation for later whether or not they should be putting ads

on their shows when that money could go to actual Canadian producers that don't get funding from the

government. But they're the giant. As you mentioned, when podcasting became hot in Canada,

all sorts of companies started to jump in. Where are they now?

I would say it's kind of gone downhill in my opinion. I mean, CBC has been the big player

for a lot of years. And then chorus came into the mix and launched their network Curious Cast.

And they've had, I think, a handful of shows on their dark poutine, I think.

Dark poutine. Those shows have been around for a while. So it seems like Curious Cast,

that network has really focused on like their handful of shows and just keep producing them.

They're not going to take on anything new. They're just going to keep those guys going strong.

And then otherwise like Rogers kind of lost all of their podcasts at some point. And then

really only have like three on the frequency network at this point. And they're slowly growing

again. And as far as I know, that team is very small, very, very small and lean. And I don't know

any other major broadcasters other than maybe the sports net side of things, which is also Rogers,

they're putting out sports podcasts. And then of course, there's Canada Land, which is a legacy

podcast network run by Jesse Brown. Canada Land is really the only place that I've seen any sort

of Canadian sponsorship enter into the Canadian podcasting space. And I think it's because it's been

around just for so long. And it's been able to build quite a significant loyal audience over time.

But I can't think of any of their major networks. Really, it's coming down to a variety of indie

podcasters at this point who are coming together to create networks together. So there's a comedy

podcast network called the Sonar Network that has I think dozens of comedy podcasts that are all

independently produced. And they've come together as sort of a collective to get then get sponsors

across the whole network. There's the Harbinger Media Network, which is a collective of about 80

progressive left leading podcasts. That's all crowdfunded. So you have a variety of people who

support those podcasts on on Patreon. And those funds are getting spread across the whole thing.

So it's kind of like all these independent shows that are starting to come together as

collectives to share the funds and see how they can help each other thrive.

And this industry is very insular. So I assume probably correctly that we have a number of Canadian

podcasters listening to this show, right? Because people who listen to Canadian podcasts are Canadian

podcasters. You consult with podcasts big and small. We've talked about the realities of the

business. They're obviously still people who want to be in this business. Some of them don't have

trust funds to rely upon most of them probably. Given all the realities and everything that you've

just outlined, somebody comes to you and they say, I have an idea for a podcast. Let's assume for

the sake of conversation. It's a really good idea. It's a good Canadian podcast focused on Canadian

content. Maybe they want to have Canadian conversations and call it cancon or something like that.

It's a really like strong idea or at least we think so. They say, I also need to make money

doing this. Katie, how do I go about that? What do you tell them? What do you recommend?

Well, my first recommendation is don't expect to make any money launching a brand new podcast.

The podcasts that are out there are making money because they've been around for years and years

and years. A lot of people say they want to be like the next Joe Rogan or something. And that guy

is a whole other story, but he started over a decade ago. He was one of the first industry to

start building an audience. So that's been a huge benefit for him. But if anyone started wanted to

start a podcast, my first thing would be to say, you know, start with a measurable goal, start

with maybe five episodes and produce a mini season and make sure that they are all really high

quality because right now there is no excuse for bad quality podcasts at this point. So do what you

do. Do it really well. Do a really strong launch. Make sure your artwork and your podcast

packaging is really amazing. And then once you've put out five episodes, take a step back, see how

it went for you, see how you're feeling about it all before you decide to go all in. And that's

kind of my advice across the board is always just like start with a measurable production goal and then

make everything really, really top quality. Take your time and getting it published. And then once

you've done a good job at publishing something, then you'll be able to see, okay, where are the

monetization opportunities for me? And at that point, what is the best path? I'm not saying that like

all these paths or any of these paths are like good and like guaranteed to work. But

is the future of funding Canadian podcasts and growing this industry? Is it in crowdfunding?

Or is it in convincing corporations and brands to value attention more than the number of downloads

and engagement? Is it just praying and advocating your local MP to convince the government to

find podcasts beyond the CBC? I would say, let's chase where the money is these days. And the money

is in corporations. We can't expect our listeners to shell out another five bucks a month when they're

already spending it on 12 different streaming platforms. We can't. I don't think we can. We can

ask a few maybe five bucks if you're listening to this. There's a ton of work that we need to do in

educating specifically Canadian brands. I think to start sponsoring Canadian shows. Canada is

notoriously conservative when it comes to trying anything new and risky. It takes us forever to do

anything because I've been wondering like, what is it that makes it so hard for us to just go and

make something happen? And I think there is a Canadian quality about if we want to put anything

out or do something new, it has to be perfect. And so we really take our time to start trying

anything like sponsoring a podcast. So I think we've still got like, hopefully less than a year ahead

of us of educating Canadian brands to start sponsoring podcasts, but they're the ones with the money

right now. We are all spending our money on brands. And so it's time for them to start giving

back to the creators that are supporting them. They just need to take a leap of faith at this point.

And so let's demand that, you know, anytime a Canadian podcast shouts out a brand, let's start

flooding their DMs with, hey, sponsor this podcast. I have two more questions for you, both forward

looking for people who love podcasts in this country and want Canadian content. A huge trend

that anybody in podcasting has heard about over the past couple of years is video podcasts.

You will notice that you can't see me right now if you're listening to this. I'm in your ears.

I'm not in your eyes. You can be thankful for that. We don't do video. What does the push towards

video content mean for Canadian podcasters? I see a number of issues with this not to get

doom and gloom of it. With the normalization of video, there's a couple of different things. So the

big announcement recently is that Apple podcasts is going to start publishing video on their platform.

They already have for a while, but it's been hard to access. So this is going to be a bigger

version of that. And so with that, I think there's going to be a lot of interesting challenges

for Canadian shows to come up against. One, I already mentioned like we are already lacking resources.

And the kinds of podcast videos out there are starting to get more and more high quality. We're

talking like studio sets, three point lighting, three camera setup. You've got a switcher. You've

got a video editor, all that stuff. It's not you and me on zoom. Yeah, not you and me on zoom.

And that kind of setup is what's become normalized for us specifically around celebrity interview

podcasts. And so I think if we start seeing video promoted more on podcast consumption platforms,

Canadian podcasters can't compete. We don't have the resources to do something like that. And so

we're going to be buried under all of the ones that can coming out of the states. So it's going

to be hard for us to survive on this on the discovery side of things. Don't love that.

This has been a whole episode on things that you don't really love except for Canadian podcasting.

I love Canadian podcasts. What are your biggest hopes and your biggest fears for Canadian

made podcasts going forward? My biggest hopes is that in me complaining about all the things I don't

love rooted in all of that is opportunity that I think there is for Canada to step up to sport

its creators for sponsors to start reaching audiences that are like more engaged than any other

platform they could possibly advertise on. There's all these numbers and stats that prove that

people who listen to podcasts are more likely to take actions on brands and sponsors and ads

that they hear. So if any Canadian brands are listening who've been thinking about dabbling in

the podcasting space like this is your sign because if you are one of the first to start adopting

this marketing tactic of advertising on podcasts like you will be one of the first that any Canadian

hears. Just going to tell you hello dot cancon at gmail dot com. Exactly. So there's so much

opportunity here for brands to start getting involved for the Canadian government to start getting

involved in uplifting Canadian voices because right now the Canadian podcasting landscape is not

reflective of how diverse our country is. So there's all this opportunity here that I think if anyone

doubled down on right now could totally change the entire industry however however if nobody does

then I think you know Canadian podcasts are just going to start to trickle out and in the case of

all of the media in Canada Canadians will just start listening to the the high quality stuff that's

coming out of the states and that will be our same norm of the media consumption that we've been

doing for the last few years. And I think Canadians want Canadian content there's already stats out

there that prove it. So it's time to just hop on the opportunity and if we hop on it then we will

thrive. Katie thank you so much for this it's great and I love working on this show with you even if

none of us get paid it's the best. It's the best thank you so much for allowing me to

rant into your ears and our audience's ears Jordan I appreciate it. I think people should know

what's going on I'm with what they listen to and I'm glad you could kind of lay it out there even if

it wasn't the most optimistic. There are pathways to success all we have to do is find them Canadian

media is always work harder than media to the south to break through to be heard to grow an audience and

we're not going to stop doing that and we love having these conversations with you on cancon

every week I'm your host Jordan Heathrawlings. Katie lower who you just heard is a producer on this

show as is Matt Kesselman who you didn't hear but is integral to making this show as I mentioned

the email address is hello dot cancon at gmail dot com if you want to get in touch if you have an

idea for an episode if you want to give us a $50,000 grant because you're a government official

we are here to listen to you and we'll have another Canadian conversation for you next week