I’ve got a novel idea of how podcasters can make money - give people a product they are willing to pay for.

I pay for the Strategery bundle (as do enough other people to make him over $5 million a year), a Slate subscription with all of their related podcasts and a couple of others - Downstream and ATP.

On the ad supported side, Gruber’s podcast has been going strong for decades and Manager Tools/Career Tools only has ads for its own conferences and it’s been podcasting weekly since 2005.

The Acquired podcast negotiates long term sponsorship deals.

Relay.FM podcasts seem to be going strong between ads and paid members

The trend you see is that it’s better to be a niche podcaster and have “1000 true fans” and an audience either willing to pay or one that advertisers want to reach - like Apple customers who are more willing to pay for stuff.