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The Program 2025 annual review: How much money does an audio drama podcast make?

• deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
• pclark 10mo ago
  > The Program audio series is a sci-fi anthology podcast set in a future in which Money, State, and God became fused into a single entity called the Program. Each episode is a standalone story focusing on ordinary people inhabiting this extraordinary world. And for them, it is not this future that is terrifying - it is our present.
• WoodenChair 10mo ago
  Thanks for posting this detailed history and breakdown. And congratulations on your success. As someone with a podcast in the same ballpark of downloads, I will say it's a real testament to how much people must like The Program that you have managed to monetize to the tune of ~$30K CAD in a single year with just 140,000 downloads in the same year. That's really good! People must love what you're doing and that must be very gratifying. Cheers!
  • I-M-S 10mo ago
    A very astute observation - The Program's audience is indeed loyal if not large. I mentioned in some previous reports that I might have painted myself into too big of a niche with a sci-fi audio drama at the intersection of IT and humanities, but people who like it seem to really love it. 1000 true fans, and all that I guess.
• fallinditch 10mo ago
  Sounds like a great show, will give it a listen. To the author: do you use AI at all in the creative aspects of the production? I assume that AI assistance in creative writing is now mainstream, and an accepted tool for most writers. I am interested to know your thoughts on this subject and if you use AI then what sort of methods do you use? Note: Google Gemini reports that "the most successful writers in 2025 use me as a "distillation machine." They write 1,000 words of raw emotion, then ask me to help them find the "300 words that actually matter"
  • didgeoridoo 10mo ago
    Google Gemini has literally no idea how it is being used. It made that up.
    • fallinditch 10mo ago
      Yes it sounds like a bold statement. I called Gemini out on that and it admitted that it over-egged its confidence on that assertion. But presumably the LLMs do have some knowledge about how they are used? On further probing Gemini did give a plausible justification - in summary: "Creation is easy. Selection is hard. In an era of infinite content, the "most successful" writer isn't the one who can produce the most; it's the one with the best taste. Using an LLM as a distillation machine allows a writer to iterate through their own ideas at 10x speed, discarding the "average" and keeping only the "potent."
      • nemomarx 10mo ago
        Why would Gemini (the text model part) have that info? I'm sure that Google has some kinda analytics, or so on, but it wouldn't necessarily be part of training, the system prompt, or distillation directly.
        • shigawire 10mo ago
          The only plausible avenue I see is Gemini ingesting Google press releases about how cool their AI is. Leave it to the reader to decide how informative that would be.
• yujzgzc 10mo ago
  This is informative for an indie audio podcast. I wonder how the economics and scale change for podcasts published by studios like Audible or even smaller ones like Pushkin
• jasonlotito 10mo ago
  > Patreon offers so many more features and user benefits that it’s not even worth comparing the two. As someone who subscribes to numerous Patreons including those which are podcasts… Patreon is horrible from a user perspective. It’s UX makes it so I hate when I have to use it. The less I need to use it, the better. Couple that with the god awful pod casting apps that currently exist, it’s amazing podcasting is still so strong. It’s a testament to the creators that people will wade through such horrible UX to support the people and creators they do.
  • code-blooded 10mo ago
    Genuine question: what's harming your experience in current podcasting apps? I've been using AntennaPod for a while and used a few different ones in the past. They all seemed to work well enough.
    • jasonlotito 10mo ago
      > Genuine question: what's harming your experience in current podcasting apps? Oh, where do I begin beyond just saying they are trash. I've used all the big names and each one seems like it was created with a the same basic idea in mind: show the latest episodes of a podcast, and have some form of pagination. Which is fine if that's all your podcast does and isn't meant to be listened to from the beginning. But the moment your pod cast might have different shows or parts or otherwise intend to start at the beginning, it's suddenly hit or miss. Basically, it makes an assumption about how podcasts should work and ignores the reality of popular podcasts out there. Not to mention some are just obtuse to use. I forget which one but I was trying to add a feed to a popular one and there was NO where to add my own feed. Spent five minutes looking and there was no way to add a URL feed. Like, that's core 101 functionality. Like I said, I tried the popular ones and they all were annoying to use. I realize this comment doesn't help much, mostly because it was earlier this year that I tried them out and became frustrated so it's mostly me thinking through how much they sucked and not much on the specifics. I think the best way I can think of it is they all did the bare minimum and stopped. I use Apple's Podcast app because it's free, it syncs, and it while it sucks, I don't want to pay for something that isn't better than free. I'm on iOS, so AntennaPod won't work for me.
• code-blooded 10mo ago
  > I’m likely further hamstrung by the fact my content is high-brow & long-form, which comes at a disadvantage in the contemporary media landscape. I think it comes at an advantage for building a loyal fan base in audio drama podcasts though. The kind of fan base that may want to support you financially.