On May 30, we will release our first podcast episode with a paywall, the May edition of Incentives & Instincts. You’ll hear my typical half-hour conversation with Bryce Ward. After that, we spend another 15 minutes answering a listener question; that portion of the conversation will be available only to paid subscribers.
Also in the works are narrated versions of these Substack posts and other subscriber only episodes.
Why are we doing this? Well, a complete answer requires some runway — a bit of history and an explanation of A New Angle’s master plan.
I started the show in 2018. It grew out of my experience building a podcast series for an online class I was developing. I enjoyed the interviews I was doing and at the time, there wasn’t much positive storytelling coming out of the University of Montana. A podcast profiling cool people doing awesome things in and around Montana seemed useful. The objective was to highlight good work being done in the community that people could learn from. We focused on creativity and hustle, tried to cover complex topics in good faith and provide something interesting.
I recorded in my office with a mic I swiped from a retiring colleague’s office. The early edits were rugged and the sound was sketchy, but people seemed to like the show and some of them even gave us money. Money to buy nice mics! Consolidated Electrical Distributors offered to sponsor us, wanting to reach more UM students and let them know about employment opportunities. That aligned with my objectives and values so I opened the door to the advertising model. CED’s contribution enabled me to buy nicer equipment to improve our audio, making it sound close to professional.
I was getting good feedback. People were listening and recommending it to others. I got the sense it was finding a niche and adding value. First Security Bank and Blackfoot Communications signed on as presenting sponsors. They approached me less for the advertising opportunity and more with the message, “We like what you are doing, how can we help sustain it?” The answer was time. I needed time to work on the show and I could use their sponsorship dollars to buy myself out of some of my teaching.
Around this time, some incredible UM alums, Michele and Loren Hansen, wanted to support “something cool” happening at the College of Business, which birthed Studio 49. The name is a tribute to their gift, made in honor of the Hansen’s 49th wedding anniversary. Guests marvel at our facility and I love that. It’s welcoming, not what you would expect within a typical university building, and enables us to capture great sound.
The pieces were now in place to make a quality product on a regular basis. I enjoyed making the show and we were at a bit of a crossroads — how could we grow this thing? One option was to get UM to embrace the show as an official communications outlet. Maybe they would make doing the show part of my job? That idea didn’t seem to have any viable chance of happening amid the bureaucracy that is a state university. And I realized that being on the edge of the university was a better place to be anyway. Yes, I wanted to tell positive stories about things happening in the UM orbit, but I wanted to maintain independence and the ability to call balls and strikes as I saw them.
Another growth option was to go full gas on social media — to put all of our sponsorship revenue into paid campaigns. That was a non-starter for me. No way would I put any more money into the pockets of Meta’s overlords. We resolved to promote our show on their platforms but never do any paid promotions.
The third option was to get on public radio. That aligned with our values and — I suspected — the listening sensibility of our audience. I had met several folks at Montana Public Radio and they were aware of A New Angle. Soon we got an invitation to produce a Sunday Special, an hour-long compilation of some of our best work to air on a Sunday afternoon. This was a big opportunity for us and we put together what I think was a great edit of our conversations with Larry Summers, Anne Helen-Peterson and Maureen Dowd.
Around this time, a friend and listener suggested I interview Brian Kahn, legendary host of the long running Home Ground Radio program on MTPR. Brian was a master of his craft and meeting him was an inspiration. We became fast friends. I think we had similar goals in our work, expressed in different ways. About a year later Brian invited me and my Incentives & Instincts collaborator, Bryce Ward, to be interviewed for Home Ground. We jumped at the chance.
Speaking of Incentives & Instincts, long time listeners might recall that Bryce Ward was our guest for episode one. He came back for our one-year anniversary show to help launch Incentives & Instincts, our monthly series. Bryce is an economist (incentives) and I am an applied social psychologist (instincts) and for years we had been having long conversations about a wide variety of societal challenges. I&I became our chance to grapple with these topics in public and peg our conversations to the news cycle. I get more comments about these episodes than any others.
In November of 2020, Brian Kahn passed away during a hunting trip, leaving a massive hole in Montana’s intellectual landscape. MTPR and Yellowstone Public Radio asked if we would take over the timeslot, following nearly 25 years of Home Ground Radio. It was and continues to be a tremendous honor to occupy that space. We tip our hat to Brian’s legacy every episode with my opening question, “Where did you grow up and what did your parents do?”
Ok…that’s the history. Now back to the question of why are we seeking paid subscribers?
The primary reasons are revenue diversification, expanding student opportunities, and reaching new audiences in new ways.
Right now we earn revenue from sponsors, primarily Blackfoot Communications and First Security Bank, with additional support from Consolidated Electrical Distributors. UM’s College of Business allows me to use Studio 49 and gives A New Angle some of Jeff Meese’s time to engineer our audio files. Montana Public Radio buys each episode for about $40 on the Public Radio Exchange and they pay for Keely Larson’s time producing the show. It’s a lean model and it works well, but it has several limitations.
First, sponsorship is ostensibly advertising and advertising is the original sin of our information economy. Whoever thought we should pair journalism with advertising set in motion a system with horrible conflicts of interest and other structural problems. Enshittificiation by the attention merchants reveals how this model makes for terrible online products and services. Our current state of polarization and political dysfunction show how awful it is for our populace.
Don’t get me wrong. Blackfoot, First Security and CED are fantastic partners. I am so grateful for their strong and dedicated support over multiple years, and I very much want our partnership to continue. The show would not exist without them and they’ve enabled lots of cool things. But I don’t like having all our eggs in those baskets. They’ve never done or said anything to influence our coverage, but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t acknowledge that that possibility exists.
Giving the product away for free hasn’t worked out so well for most journalistic enterprises. If you value a product you should pay for it. A small contribution goes a long way to supporting an endeavor like ours. Another thing to consider is that if you aren’t paying for a product, then it’s likely you are the product.
So we are asking folks who value our show to pitch in and help us make it. What does that look like? First, I use the funds to help aspiring journalists and creators build their careers. I’m proud of our track record.
Victor Yvellez did great work on Fireline, which helped get him good jobs at NPR’s Throughline and now Bloomberg. AJ Williams graduated from A New Angle to MontanaPBS. Keely started working on audio here and now is the editor of the Seeley-Swan Pathfinder and regular contributor to Montana Free Press. Aspen Runkle is doing great creative and analytical work at Pathlabs. Stephen Borsom, our OG producer, is off and running in a digital media career at Deloitte. Creating opportunities for students to do stuff and make things is a central objective of the enterprise.
Nick Mott was already established as a journalist, but our collaboration on Fireline led to the opportunity to co-author a book.
When a new person joins the team, typically a student, I know that they won’t be around very long. I don’t want them to be. Our production system is designed to create experiences they can use to help launch their careers.
I don’t pay Bryce but I want to. He’s reluctant to accept compensation, both because he’s one of the most generous people I know, but also perhaps because he knows what funds we do have primarily go to the early-career folks working on the show.
I also want to grow the show and reach more people in more ways. We are developing plans to add video to our production and I am playing around with ideas for a YouTube show. These projects take time and expertise and require equipment. I need to fund these initiatives.
I’d like to make another longform show like Fireline. That was hard work and good work and I think it added a lot of value. I was able to pay Nick and Victor for their time — not enough — but I didn’t compensate myself. I can’t do that again. There isn’t a great model for that sort of longform audio journalism and their needs to be. Direct support can be a part of fixing that.
I’ve always wanted A New Angle to be a conversation with the audience. Our best guest suggestions come from you. I want this show to be useful, add value, and be responsive to criticism and suggestions. Building out this Substack site and doing this writing helps with that.
All this is not to say that the subscriber model is impervious to ethical problems. Though insulated from advertiser conflicts, players in the subscription space can be captured by their audiences. People prefer content that comports with their existing worldview, so serving your subscribers what they want, perhaps not what they need, is good business. Diversifying our revenue streams buffers us against these conflicts as much as possible.
So what’s the goal of all this?
I want to create something interesting and engaging that our audience can learn from, even if that means being exposed to uncomfortable ideas. I want our audience to gain insights they can put into practice to live happier, healthier lives and make positive contributions to their communities.
This endeavor has never felt like work, but I work hard on it and so does the rest of the team. Sometimes there are headwinds, sometimes there are tailwinds. Whatever the case, we steadily crank out podcast episodes and do what we think will add value to the discourse. It’s a messy world out there with loads of snake oil, perverse incentives and bad actors. We’re far from perfect, but we’re doing our best to be the best we can be.
I’m humbled and grateful that anyone would listen, and if you are so inclined and able to directly support our work, we will put your precious dollars to work as best we can.