Astronomy Cast Can't Go On Like This

0:00Hey, Pamela, we get to do a We Need to Talk video now. Have you ever done one of these? No, no. And like that is a sentence I think I've gone through my life avoiding. Yeah, well, it's a YouTuber thing, right? Like people will be on YouTube and they'll be like, we need to talk. And they'll have this like really serious thumbnail in a different place because everything has changed. And so, you know, if you're watching this right now, if you're listening to this, everybody, we need to talk. Yeah. Yeah. We've been doing AstronomyCast for 20 years for 799 episodes and things have

0:35evolved over time, but we're about to take, I think, the biggest leap we have ever made. But good news, you're going to experience a much better podcast and videos. And here's the problem. Ads just don't work. And we have been putting ads in AstronomyCast for over a decade and they are annoying, but they used to bring in money and now they just don't bring in money. And so we have made the decision to cut off all of the ads from everything that we do. If you go and you listen

1:09to back episodes on our RSS feed, there are no ads, none. They are gone, gone, and they're going to stay gone. And we need your help to make up the difference in revenue so that we can continue to pay our people a fair salary. So we've been living in this sort of state of tension with our funding sources. And that is because AstronomyCast is largely funded by advertising. And this is a thing that we did early on when sponsors reached out and they're like, hey, do you want to receive this box of

1:43dog toys? And you can then fund your podcast? And that seemed a perfectly natural fit to you. But there is this ratchet that just keeps cranking so that the invasiveness of the ads goes up, the value that you get from the sponsors goes down, and you end up inevitably on this knife edge where you're just like if you would annoy your audience anymore, they would all leave you. Some of them have left us. Some of them

2:17have already left us. Yes. Yeah, totally. And yet you would not be able to afford to do your business, run your podcast if you didn't put those ads in. And this is the place where we find ourselves today or we found ourselves in the last month. And yeah, this is something that I went through with universe today. I got to this exact same point about 18 months ago, where the advertisers were just getting worse, the amount that they were giving in terms of revenue was going down, I'd lost like 80% of my ad revenue on universe

2:52today, because of this ratchet. And then you've got the rise of all this AI slop, you've got the search engine optimization, like everything is going for their pound of flesh. And it is just completely unsustainable. And we were very stressed out about this situation. And we reached the point with AstronomyCast that we're just done with it. We have heard you, we have read your comments, we have read your emails. And we're just going to do what you asked for.

3:23We've now removed all of the ads, and we're not going to paywall what we're doing. Everything is free. But this isn't sustainable either, unless you help us. So we're currently around 900, we're under 900 patrons. We need to get to 1500 contributing patrons in order to make this part work. We've already done it. We've removed the ads. We are ad free. Yeah, we took the leap of faith. So we know that this is a thing that will probably work.

3:57And for it to work, we need your help. And you've been with us for 20 years.

4:05Some of you. Yeah, it's true. Bad panda, I'm looking at you.

4:11And so I'm hoping that you'll continue to contribute over at patreon.astronomycast.com. And if you're in a place to financially help us, and you aren't because you're like, you have so many ads, well, we don't anymore. So yeah, we don't have any ads. Yeah, this is our only way of funding. And we've got to be really clear about this. Like this is not a paywall. Like we are not going to put all of our content behind a paywall, make everybody pay for it. No,

4:41everything is going to be as freely available as possible. And with this added benefit that it no longer have any ads. And so if you're an educator, or if you're a parent wanting to be in the car and inflict space, knowledge on your children, you don't have to worry that you're going to have to hear this 30 second long advertisement for something dumb or even embarrassing for all of us. Which is kind of humiliating. Yeah. So they're gone.

5:12Yes. And we are going to be doing early access wherever possible for paying patrons. Everything will then go publicly accessible. Everything is still Creative Commons. So we aren't just free, we are free, free. And we're asking for you to catch us as we take this leap. Yeah. And I mean, people probably don't even realize this, but neither Pamela and I take a salary from astronomy cast. This is this is a volunteer effort that we have done for 20 years. But you

5:42know, we're happy to volunteer our time editing the episodes, editing the video, paying for the server costs, paying for the tools that the team uses, like these are real expenses. And that the quality of the show, it really comes down to their efforts and energy. And, you know, you live in the United States, you guys provide additional benefits. Like there's a lot of expenses that go along with astronomy cast. And and by hitting that 1500 person mark, that gets us to this place where we are able

6:17to cover the expenses of everybody involved in a way that is sort of bulletproof that that then all we think about is what episode do we want to talk about? What stuff are we curious about? And we know that we've got the expenses covered for the team. And we are so close, like 900 to 1500. It's a totally closable gap with your help. So go to patreon.astronomycast.com. Yep. And that will

6:48take you to our Patreon page. If you're an existing patron, feel free to deepen your membership. If you are feeling free to feel encouraged. Yes. If you are a free member, consider switching over and becoming a paid patron. And of course, if you're just on the sidelines, and you're like, I really like Fraser and Pamela, and I really like the show, but they're making money with ads. And I want to punish them. Which is a real thing. For having ads. You know, they made their choice. No, we have now

7:21removed the ads. You are now free to join us on the other side. Go ahead. So please go to patreon.astronomycast.com and support us. And please don't support us through other means like YouTube super chats and things like that. Because Patreon only takes a small amount of the money, a fair and equitable fee. Everyone else takes a huge amount of money and it just goes to the corporation. Don't do that. All right. So we have done our part. We have removed all of the ads everywhere that we could. We have made this all

7:56available to you. We are still paying the salaries of the team and we need your help to close that gap to go from 900 to 1500 patrons. If you can support us, we would really appreciate it. And if you can't, I get it. The economy is terrible. Tell your friends. Tell your social media. Share us out. So if you can, please go to patreon.astronomycast.com. Support us. And if you can't, make other people support us. Perfect. Yes. Awesome. All right. Well, it's been great 20 years

8:32working with you, Pamela. Here is to 20 more. Yes. This, this is a goal. We are going to be little people communicating the wonders of the universe to everyone out there listening. All right. Thank you, Pamela. Thanks everyone. And we'll see you on the other side. Bye-bye.