Another Quarter, Another Million: Wizzard Posts Q1 Loss
May 18th, 2009 | By Elisabeth Lewin | Category: Making Money with Podcasts, Podcast Hosting, Podcasting, Podcasting Networks 
Podcasting network Wizzard Media announced its first-quarter figures on Friday. The bad news: the company reported a $1.3 million loss for the first quarter of 2009.
Revenue is down 29 percent from the same period in 2008. The company attributed the decline to the recession and “specifically mentioned a decrease in staffing revenue within its health care subsidiary,” the Pittsburgh Business Journal reported.
The better news: the $1.3 million loss is significantly less than this same time last year, when Wizzard reported a $2.75 million loss.
“The first quarter of 2009 was a challenging quarter across all segments of our business,†CEO Chris Spencer said in a statement. “We attribute this directly to the severe global recession and expect results to improve as economic conditions improve.â€
Spencer also said “We also began a new monetization effort for our podcasting business through the use of iPhone Apps which we believe could significantly increase income for our podcast publishers in the 3rd and 4th quarters of this year.”
This comes on the heels of eMarketer’s post ‘Podcasting Not Too Profitable’ (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007083) This is a bad year for podcasting companies across the board. Ask Podango.
Wizzard is doomed and so are podcasters hosting with them over at Libsyn. They already raised their hosting rates. I smell a sinking ship..
the ecomic crisis influence all over things like Wizzard.
We never could make the LibSyn $ model make long term sense; this is true of so many of the hosting sites (especially video). I truly hope these companies can find a way to charge a fair rate for their services and stay in business – I shudder to think about all the lost assets if one of these big houses fall without notice. There is a collective of awol responsibility – businesses built on a wing and a prayer – and being first/biggest to market. Then the creators who do it for love and don’t want to pay. All delivered to the audiences who want the content for free.
Can someone please get a micropayment system up and running soon so it is easy to live on “Just 1000 fans”? And support our vendors in the process?