Wait, how much?



I have been corresponding with someone from Universal Music to find out how much it might cost me to license a certain song for my podcast theme song.  I figured it should not cost too much.  The band I have in mind has never had a hit song and they have not put out any new music in decades.  The lead singer died a long time ago.  Plus I am only getting under 100 hits a day on the blog (which, since it has only been up for just over two weeks I am proud of that) so I would anticipate similar download numbers on the first few episodes.  How much could they possibly charge for something like that?

Music Licensing


How much?  How about ten grand!  Yup.  Ten thousand dollars to license a song by a washed up, no name band, for a podcast which does not yet have any sponsors and has not had a single download.  These music guys are smoking crack.  No wonder music pirating is so rampant.  


Why pay for something you cannot even consider affording, when they put it right out there in front of you for the taking.  It is like if a fruit peddler pulled his fruit stand up in front of a homeless shelter and announced that his over-ripened bananas were $200 each and then went home for the night, leaving all his goods sitting there on the stand.  What do you think he would find when he got back to his stand in the morning?


I am not going to steal the song.  I will wait until I have some sponsors and then add the music.  I am just saying, I can understand why some people would.


I emailed the guy back to see if there is some type of limited use license I can use.  He wrote back and said he would work with me, that maybe they could license the song to me for 26 episodes, paid in advance.  So still ten grand but only half of it up front.  Thanks for working with me, pal!  I am checking now to see if the radio station I visited the other day has a license for the song.  I will just use theirs.  Or I will not have music.  Whatever.  Ten grand.  Really?


I thought I had the podcast delivery platform for my UFO Podcast nailed down.  I was going to use SoundCloud.  I checked it out but I do not think it is the right place for my show.  After more research I have narrowed my choices down to either blubrry or Libsyn.  I should be able to announce the location by the end of next week.  After that, all I need to do is book my guests and begin recording.  I should put up a website too.


The first interview was forty minutes long.  The show was going to be thirty minutes but now if I am going to do it live on the radio it will have to be an hour.  That includes an intro and some gaps to insert sponsors in the future once I reach ten thousand downloads.  That is the magic number.  It seems like a lot but when you consider there are hundreds of millions of people in the US and billions around the world who could potentially download the show, it is not that many.  I will not earn much from the sponsorships but if it covers my costs then that is all that matters.


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