Thanks to the more than 150 listeners who weighed in on my request for their preferred form of underwriting for Winecast. For new listeners, the growth of the show has increased my hosting costs noticeably, as I explained in Winecast 31 and when I announced this poll here on the blog.
At one level, it seems that sponsorship is the preferred choice with 42% of the vote, but when I boil the results down into three main buckets — sponsorship, listener support and no change — the listener support option
wins by 10%. I know that this is not statistically valid with such a small sample size, but it provides me with enough information to continue to build out my store, add a tip jar and experiment further with Google ads. I’m not ruling out sponsorship by any means, but I think I will go down the path of listener support first.
Do you know the number of listeners you have? If so, that can be your hook for getting sponsors? You could do some sort of deal that includes an audio sponsor, and a Web ad/link.