‘We’re not even covering our costs’: Hamilton podcasters pitch to Hollywood while trying to secure a living wage for their industry

COVID-19 has changed much about the way we act and think and organize our worlds and soon it might radically alter the very choice of verbs we use to refer to our most popular entertainments.

As in, Did you hear the latest Hollywood blockbuster?" Not hear about; just hear. Or Did you listen to that new Paramount production?"

Hear? Listen? What happened to see and watch? Well, sound you can do in a lockdown. Visuals? Hard to shoot a crowd scene when all the extras are two metres apart. Hard to assemble camera crews and lighting technicians and cram them in a studio without breaking the law in a lockdown. Sound? You can do it alone, in a closet.

All of which is my way of saying, meet Sean Howard and Eli McIlveen.

They're Toronto transplants who moved here about four years ago and brought with them an enormously popular fictional podcast called Alba Salix, Royal Physician," now in its ninth year.

Since they've arrived here they've added several other podcasts to their menu, such as Civilized," What's the Frequency?" and Death by Dying."

Alba Salix," their flagship, has been heard by more than a million listeners; it gets about 40,000 downloads a month. And it is, as far as they know, the only, or one of only a very few, Canadian fiction podcasts to win a Webby Award (Webbies are sometimes called the Oscars of the internet"), an international honour that is about as strong a measure of success as a podcast can enjoy.

You might think box office would be an even stronger measure but here's the thing. Podcasts, as popular as they've become in the last several years (when Sean and Eli started in 2011 they were on the ground floor), just can't seem to make any money for their creators. There are exceptions, but there's not much of a revenue stream right now.

Almost no one making fictional podcasts is making a living wage at it - we're not even covering our costs - and that has to change," says Sean who recently drafted what he calls a manifesto," calling for, among other things, podcast creators to present a stronger, more unified front and work together to offer economies of scale, so to speak, to advertisers and production companies.

Earlier this year, he and Eli pooled their podcasts with those of several other podcast creators to form a nexus called Fable & Folly Network, which represents some of the fastest growing audio fiction podcasts across sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, thriller and historical drama." It provides, according to the F&F Network website, advertisers with more effective and immersive opportunities to reach previously untapped listeners. Our job at Fable and Folly HQ is to secure partnership and sponsorship opportunities for the producers in the network."

All right here, from their home in Hamilton.

But what is exciting Sean right now, in terms of the potential for improving revenue for podcast creators, is that he is in talks with ... Hollywood.

This was going to happen anyway, such is the momentum of podcasts, but the pandemic lockdown has, he thinks, accelerated the process.

Hollywood knows how popular fictional podcasts have become," says Sean, adding that podcasts are set to become a $1-billion industry by 2021, and right now they're looking for something to produce." Because, on account of COVID-19, they can't do studio shoots with big crews and such.

Podcasts are starting to look very appetizing.

While podcasts are produced ideally with a cast getting together and recording in a studio-like setting, or even in a high-end audio production facility, they can be done, in a pinch, by people recording separately, remotely, and good sound can be achieved right at home.

We can't gather in our (his and Eli's) home with four mics on the game room floor, styrofoam on the ceiling and play off each other," he says. But people can, and are, recording their parts alone in closets with mattresses or blanket forts.

Who knows? Hollywood might enter a new age of talkies;" instead of sound being added, visuals will be taken out.

For all the excitement of pitching to Hollywood and to advertisers - everything from insurance companies to the beer, wine and spirits industry to mattress sellers - and for all the success he has had in getting podcast creators to sign on to his manifesto, it's still making the podcasts that is his first joy.

Both, Sean and Eli, came to the relatively new medium through a passion both for sound and for story.

Eli, the main writer, ran a sketch comedy show for University of Waterloo radio and then did sound design for many Toronto theatrical productions, through which he met and enlisted many professional actors who make up the cast of Eli and Sean's podcast shows.

Sean has a background in advertising and marketing but also in improv and juggling.

He describes Alba Salix, Royal Physician" as a kind of Shrek meets House,'" and, while very quirky (it begins with the king going to Alba for her help when he wakes up one morning and his hair is snakes) and it is very sharply written, with great voice acting by mostly professional actors.

To listen and to learn more, go to fableandfolly.com.

Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com