RadioPublic announced that their Paid Listens program ended on November 30, 2019. RadioPublic posted a blog about this change the day before the program was ending, so this may have taken some podcasters by surprise. RadioPublic wrote:

Ultimately, we have decided to focus our attention and resources on the set of tools that are helping podcasters grow and engage audiences on and beyond RadioPublic – like our marketing landing pages, the embed player, Podsites and other features available to RadioPublic Basic and Pro podcasters.

Here’s what you should know if your podcast was a Paid Listens participant:

•  According to RadioPublic, podcasters who have a balance of $15 or more will receive a payout. (Previously, the payout threshold was $25). To revive your final Paid Listens payout, you must complete the Stripe setup from your RadioPublic dashboard in the paid Listens section by December 15, 2019.
• For podcasters who are pending approval for Paid Listens or with a balance of less than $15, there is no action needed.
• All podcasters who have a balance above $5 will be able to use promo code “PAIDLISTENS” to get one free month of RadioPublic PRO.

RadioPublic introduced Paid Listens in March of 2018. It was intended to help jumpstart a new marketplace for in-app promotion. The idea was to make it super easy for any podcaster to get paid for listens on RadioPublic and help grow listenership in the app. The eventual plan was to sustain Paid Listens by selling in-app pre-roll spots to podcasters and advertisers, and also give listeners the ability to pay podcasters directly to skip them.

According to RadioPublic, over 3,500 podcasters signed up for Paid Listens, resulting in thousands of hours of listening, and tens of thousands of dollars in per-listen payments going back into podcasters’ pockets.