Before he became governor of California and president of the United States, Ronald Reagan hosted the weekly TV show General Electric Theater. Every Sunday night for nine years beginning in 1953, he brought adaptations of plays and short stories and guests like James Dean and the Marx brothers to millions of American viewers. The show provided the oratory opportunities that helped make Reagan "The Great Communicator"—and brought the General Electric brand into living rooms nationwide.
Single corporate sponsorship of television programs fell out of vogue in the 1960s, in favor of now-familiar ad spots. But after 53 years off the air, General Electric is reviving the concept in a modern (if retro) medium: podcasts. The Message, a show entirely sponsored by GE and produced in partnership with Slate's Panoply network, is currently No. 14 on the iTunes podcast chart, and might just change how podcast funding works.
Most podcasts tap their listeners for funding. It works a lot like a pubic radio pledge drive, except the rise of online crowdfunding sites makes it easier than ever for listeners to rally around a show. "The model isn't built to be like public radio, but our funding does actually map onto what public radio has traditionally done, reinterpreted for a podcast format," says Jake Shapiro, CEO of PRX, or the Public Radio Exchange, the online radio marketplace behind podcast network Radiotopia.
Radiotopia, home to shows like Love+Radio, 99% Invisible, and Song Exploder, is in the midst of its second annual online fundraising campaign. The collective got the idea after *99% Invisible'*s wildly successful 2012 Kickstarter. That show's host, Roman Mars, sought $42,000 to hire a third staff member; 5,661 backers donated $170,477, making it the most successful journalism Kickstarter ever. That provided a path forward for other niche podcasts with small, devoted audiences.
"What we saw from Roman's experience was that listeners to these shows are completely willing to participate, given an invitation to support them and feed their fandom," Shapiro says. He hopes extending the crowdfunding tactic beyond a single show through Radiotopia campaigns will make one-time contributors into ongoing supporters. "Kickstarter is focused on introducing a new thing," he says. "At this point, we're working to sustain something that has proven itself, to establishing a longer arc of listener support."
Such ongoing backing from fans—and matching grants from nonprofits like the Knight Foundation and companies like Mailchimp—is especially important because big brands remain hesitant to commit substantive advertising money. They'll sponsor a few episodes, sure, but with scant evidence suggesting it is an effective use of advertising dollars, they're wary about fully funding an unknown podcast—particularly those experimenting with different formats. Mailchimp gambled on the first few episodes of a new show investigating a 15-year-old crime and lucked out. But for every Serial, there are many, many podcasts that never get traction.
"At this moment, it's still early days," Shapiro says. "The vast majority of brands and advertisers haven’t experimented with investing in podcasts."
The one area in podcasting where companies have found reliable success is with native advertising. Have you heard Ira Glass mention a recommended book on Audible? Or Marc Maron talk about using Stamps.com? Those are host-read ad spots.
"Live host reads are our bread and butter," says Lex Friedman, executive vice president of sales and development at Midroll Media, the company behind 22 of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes. This makes sense: When people listen to a podcast, they're choosing to listen to a particular host's voice. Plus, because advertisers know the host's audience, these ads are micro-targeted to exactly the customers a brand wants to reach.
"Prerecorded ads sound like a jarring interruption," Friedman says, but "when Marc Maron or Scott Aukerman read a custom ad on WTF or Comedy Bang Bang, listeners like it more. It's more personal, less abrasive."
These ads, paid for by small companies, have paved the way for campaigns from larger advertisers. "These early adopters could measure on a spot-by-spot basis, and demonstrate that host-read ads actually generate a response from listeners," Friedman says. Podcasts bring a product to loyal fans—a powerful tool for established companies looking to gain traction with the young, well-educated demographic of notoriously devoted podcast listeners.
That's exactly what General Electric hopes to do. The company takes pride in its history of collaborating on fiction programming, hearkening back to the days of General Electric Theater, and hoped to appeal to a younger audience when it turned to podcasting. "We thought, what would be an interesting way to develop a new craft of storytelling?" says Andy Goldberg, GE's global creative director. "And [podcasts] hearken back to the radio drama days, so why not play that up?"
In partnership with Panoply, GE Podcast Theater launched The Message, an eight episode sci-fi story about a team of cryptographers working to decode an extraterrestrial audio transmission, last month. With three episodes to go, the podcast has climbed to No. 14 on the iTunes chart. Goldberg hopes The Message will bring the General Electric brand to a "more Serial-esque type audience," in a way that feels comfortable to listeners. There are mentions of GE within the show, but it doesn't play a large role. "We wanted to develop a narrative story from GE that wasn’t about GE,” he explains.
And with the whole season fully backed by an international conglomerate with a multi-million-dollar advertising budget, the team behind The Message could sidestep the boot-strapped production challenges faced by most new podcasts. "Here at Panoply, we've never put so much effort into this amount of airtime before," says Andy Bowers, chief content officer. The funding model allowed Panoply to pay for a full-time writer and a large cast of actors—a far cry from Roman Mars' Kickstarter campaign to hire a second part-time producer.
Thanks in large part to the up-front investment from General Electric, "this is opening up a whole new world—people are getting re-introduced to the joys of audio drama," Bowers says. As he sees it, such partnerships could foster sustained, high-quality experimentation, before a show proves its financial worth by amassing a loyal fan base.
With its history of collaborating on television programming, GE hopes to be the first big brand to dive into podcasting. It’s already expanding beyond The Message, co-producing four extra episodes of The Cracked Podcast this month. And if the success of The Message is any indication, GE Podcast Theater won’t be the only audio homage to TV's Golden Age.
"With old-school television, people used to say, 'You're welcoming these stars into your living room,'" says Friedman. "With podcasts, we’re going one step further—they’re going right into your brain, creating a real feeling of intimacy between listener and host." Goldberg agrees that brands will continue to recognize the power that a trusted voice holds over a young, increasingly affluent audience.
As for Friedman’s vision of Ira Glass taking a step right into your brain? Now, there’s a sci-fi podcast worth listening to.
