Why Are These People So Happy?
Oct 2nd, 2006 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Video Downloads, Making Money with Podcasts, Podcasting Events, Podcasting Statistics, Video Podcasts 
At the Podcasting and Portable Media Expo, held last weekend in Ontario, California, we had the opportunity to talk with Andrew Michael Baron and Joanne Colan of Rocketboom, right, before they headed out to LA for the evening.
As you can tell from the photo, Baron and Colan looked exuberant to be at the Expo. But it wasn’t just the event that had them excited.
Baron gave the Saturday Keynote address, and he took the opportunity to discuss some recent deals they’ve made that help demonstrate the commercial viability of independently-produced video podcasts.
Just a few months ago, Rocketboom’s fate seemed to be in question with the public split of Baron and his partner and former host Amanda Congdon. But the controversy created a spike of interest in the show, and Baron seems to have made the most of the situation.
Baron said he’s just done an advertising deal worth $80,000 for a week of commercials on Rocketboom. It sounds like this is a new peak for Rocketboom. Baron noted that if he liked the product and it aligned with the interests of their audience, they same ads would go for $60,000.
According to Baron, this is an example of the “extremely huge revenue potential compared to the very small production costs” (MP3) of short-form niche video podcasts.
We talked with Baron about several other, non-Rocketboom, projects that he’s working on, one of which may have him spending time Podcasting News’ neck of the wood. We’ll look forward to revisiting Baron’s plans when he makes them public.
He could be excited/high from that new ad deal, but I put my money on his earlier trip to Amsterdam for PICNIC’06. Instead of appearing as a keynote speaker, he went flavor tasting through Amsterdam, and dissed the organizers/audience with a no-show. Way to go, Baron.
Marc
I think if anybody went flavor tasting through Amsterdam, they’d probably have been a no-show, too. Watch out for the space cakes!
Too bad about the no-show at the event – seems strange….
There’s ‘a little tasting here and there’ and there’s ‘blowing out the tubes’. Baron just should have teamed up with Marc Canter, an example of restraint..:). Ah well, I hope Andrew does have some fond memories of Old Europe..