News "Khan" podcast by Meyer, Beyer and Mack

[Avro Arrow]

Does anyone who has familiarity with these audio drama podcasts know if they ever receive a physical release later on? Or even an Audible-style digital only release? Or do they only ever exist on YouTube or wherever else you get podcasts from?

I guess a similar question is: how do these make money? If they're just released for free, but they don't exist on a subscription service like Paramount+, how do these make anything for Paramount? Are they riddled with ads or something?

 

[JD]

Yeah, they usually have adds. I listen to mine on Spotify. I've never heard of podcasts getting a physical release, but if you a lot of the services like Spotify do have the option to download them if you have a paid subscription. You might be able to put downloaded episodes onto a disk or flash drive, but I haven't downloaded any episodes of the podcasts I listen to, so I don't know.

 

[bdub76]

Does anyone who has familiarity with these audio drama podcasts know if they ever receive a physical release later on? Or even an Audible-style digital only release? Or do they only ever exist on YouTube or wherever else you get podcasts from?

I guess a similar question is: how do these make money? If they're just released for free, but they don't exist on a subscription service like Paramount+, how do these make anything for Paramount? Are they riddled with ads or something?

My go to has been Big Finish, and they provide physical releases. Some of their content is also on Spotify. Big Finish is what really got me into audio dramas back during the Wilderness Years for Doctor Who.

Audiobooks from Big Finish

Award-winning, full-cast original audio dramas from the worlds of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Blake's 7, Class, Dark Shadows, The Avengers, Survivors, The Omega Factor, Star Cops, Sherlock Holmes, Dorian Gray, Pathfinder Legends, The Prisoner, Adam Adamant Lives, Space 1999, Timeslip, Terrahawks...

www.bigfinish.com

Otherwise, there is Audible. The Sandman full cast audio is really good. I'm not sure if it ever got a physical release.

The above sell their shows.

I'm not sure if the audio show Archive 81 ever got a physical release, but it's still available.

 

[Art Vandelay]

How many will there be, and what length will each one have?

David Mack confirmed it's "nine episodes of roughly 30 minutes each":

‘Star Trek: Khan’ Timeline, Episode Count, And More Confirmed By Audio Series Co-Writer

David Mack has shared intel on the upcoming scripted podcast.

trekmovie.com

 

[David cgc]

Does anyone who has familiarity with these audio drama podcasts know if they ever receive a physical release later on? Or even an Audible-style digital only release? Or do they only ever exist on YouTube or wherever else you get podcasts from?

A podcast is just a series of audio files (MP3s, usually) with a list of them that gets updated whenever there's a new episode. I see from the second half that I'm answering the wrong question, but it's trivial to keep your own copy. Most podcasting programs treat podcast episodes as disposable and delete them when you listen to them, but they're as easy to save permanently as any image or PDF you run into on-line.

I guess a similar question is: how do these make money? If they're just released for free, but they don't exist on a subscription service like Paramount+, how do these make anything for Paramount? Are they riddled with ads or something?

Many indepentent shows or ones produced by a podcast network have an option for direct listener support, similar to public radio. You pay a few dollars a month, or more if you have the means, and get bonus episodes or the regular episodes without ads. A show like this from a major company without (as far as I can tell) a specialist podcast distribution partner would likely have some ads (probably several ads, and probably of a lower quality than independent shows; there's a whole specialized realm of podcast advertising, but the basic division is from ads read directly by the host versus pre-made ones that are cut in later like commercials on a TV show; the latter don't pay as well, but are easier to implement, and can be customize for every download based on location or demographics, if advertising companies have figured out something about you specifically from your internet fingerprint), but they could just be a "brand extension," put out for free just to give people more Star Trek to consume in the hopes that it makes them more likely to subscribe to P+ or buy some merchandise.

 

[Corran Horn]

Back in the day, it was a neverending battle to convince Amazon that Richard Matheson (the father) and Richard Christian Matheson (the son) were not the same author. Especially when both were published by Tor Books.

"One more time: I Am Legend is not written by Richard Christian Matheson!"

I have the same name as my Dad. Transunion says I've been in their records since before I was born!

 

[Tuskin38]

I have the same name as my Dad. Transunion says I've been in their records since before I was born!

Wait, I thought your dads name was Hal Horn?

 

[ClayinCA]

The Sandman full cast audio is really good. I'm not sure if it ever got a physical release.

It did and I bought them (not sure if the remaining "season" is ever going to be released due to the Gaiman scandal, but I know it's been recorded at least).

 

[Ronald Held]

Did I miss something, as I do not know the cost per episode?

 

[JD]

How much you pay per episode? Nothing, most podcasts are free to listen to. You might have to subscribe if it's on a specific service, like Sirus XM, but if it's on a place like Spotify, you can listen to them completely for free.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Did I miss something, as I do not know the cost per episode?

Yeah, as JD said, they're free.

Allow me to add that if you use an app like Pocket Casts (or Overcast or Podcat) to listen to Khan - or any other podcast - on your smartphone instead of Spotify, you help keep podcasting free and independent.

("What's his deal?" you may think. I produce an independent podcast myself, and part of keeping my livelihood going is the daily quixotic struggle against the doomsday machine that is Spotify.)

 

[Avro Arrow]

Noticed a placeholder for this on Amazon Canada today:

Star Trek: Khan : Star Trek: Amazon.ca: Books

Star Trek: Khan : Star Trek: Amazon.ca: Books

www.amazon.ca

 

[Turtletrekker]

First episode drops tomorrow.

 

[Christopher]

First episode drops tomorrow.

Somebody lay down a cushion so it doesn't break.

 

[David cgc]

It should've occurred to me a check long ago instead of just now, but in accordance with podcasting best-practices,* the "Star Trek: Khan" feed is live, and has been since July 26th. So can subscribe at any time through your favorite podcasting app or service. If you don't have a podcasting app or service, there are any number of websites that let you access podcast feeds from your web browser, and it'll probably be syndicated to YouTube.

*Seriously, it's so annoying when someone starts promoting an upcoming series, but they don't have their feed in place yet, so you can't subscribe to it in advance, you have to hope you remember you wanted to listen to it once it actually comes out.

So... are we just going to talk about it in this thread and ask a mod to switch it to the "Spoiler" flair, or have episode-by-episode threads, or what? I guess if we have individual episode threads with polls, we can integrate it with the review-catcher, though we'll also need a TLA. STK? KHN?

 

[Turtletrekker]

So... are we just going to talk about it in this thread and ask a mod to switch it to the "Spoiler" flair, or have episode-by-episode threads, or what? I guess if we have individual episode threads with polls, we can integrate it with the review-catcher, though we'll also need a TLA. STK? KHN?

I think we could probably just stick to this thread here, but if someone wants to start individual threads I have no problem with that either. However, I will put in a request to make this a spoiler thread.

 

[Avro Arrow]

So... are we just going to talk about it in this thread and ask a mod to switch it to the "Spoiler" flair, or have episode-by-episode threads, or what? I guess if we have individual episode threads with polls, we can integrate it with the review-catcher, though we'll also need a TLA. STK? KHN?

So, this is kind of new ground for our forum, because we usually deal with licensed tie-in releases, and this is our first actual "studio release", for lack of a better term.

I was sort of waiting to see if Commander Richard was going to set up episode review threads for this one, but he usually sets those up a couple days in advance, so it doesn't appear that he intends to. So I have gone ahead and set up a review thread for episode 1, but as you'll see, I blatantly copied his format, including his 1 - 10 rating scale, rather than our 5-point rating that we usually use. The reason I went this way, is because it is a Paramount release, so I wanted it to match the review threads for the other Paramount releases, since the board will be generally familiar with that, and also because it allows people to directly compare the ratings of these episodes to the episodes of the shows, if they were so inclined.

I don't know if this will be a popular choice, so if you have concerns, let me know.

And I wanted individual episode threads, just like the shows, so that people can view the threads for episodes they've already listened to, without worrying about reading spoilers for episodes they're not caught up on.

So the way it is set up now, the episode review threads will not be picked up by the review aggregator. Again, sort of intentionally, as I wasn't sure if we wanted individual episodes to show up in the review page. If we want, we can set up an "overall" review thread for Khan as a whole after all the episodes are dropped, then we could set that up in our standard format, so the series as a whole gets a ranking on the aggregator page.

This is how I was thinking about it, but again, if you have other thoughts about this, let me know. I expect this podcast will draw posters who may not normally post in this forum, but to be honest, I'm not really sure how popular it will be. I don't expect it will get as much traffic as the show threads, but I'm expecting more than for a licensed tie-in audio. I guess we will see.