Are podcasters getting paid fairly in Europe? with Susanne Klingner 💸💸

Eurowaves #18 Interview

Susanne Klingner is a journalist based in Munich. She was a magazine journalist before she founded the podcast company hauseins in 2017. In the same year she published her very first podcast series "Mind The Gap“ (Audible). She produced "Kinderland" and "Wir schaffen das!“ (FYEO) in 2020, "Just Love“ (Hessischer Rundfunk) in 2022, „Putins Krieg im Netz“ (Der Spiegel) in 2023 and „Lösch alles, Bro!“ (ZDF) in 2024.

You can connect with Susanne on LinkedIn here.

Can you explain what Podcast-Honorare is, and what specific problem in the German audio market pushed you to create it?

We created an overview where everyone can enter their daily rate for a particular job. The idea came from a story I did for my very first podcast (Mind The Gap, Audible): Female Google employees created a Google Sheet, which ultimately garnered thousands of entries – and it became very clear that women at Google earn less than their male colleagues. We want this transparency in the German podcast scene as well, because here, more or less is paid quite arbitrarily. In some production companies, the prices are abysmal, and since much of the industry is still very startup-like, there are no rules at all, for example, what the minimum wage should be.

What has the tangible impact of the database been so far, and for podcasters in Germany, how can they contribute their own data?

So far, we haven't received any feedback that someone was able to negotiate a better fee because they saw that more was available elsewhere than what they were offered in that particular case. But that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. We'll have to ask around when we meet people in the industry to see if it's happened. Anyone who produces podcasts in Germany can enter their data in the spreadsheet. It's important to be as precise as possible, so you should actually state daily fees (and calculate them if in doubt). We have some data with details on fees per episode, but that's difficult to compare, because one episode can take one day or five days to work on.

Why is establishing this culture of pay transparency so crucial for the long-term sustainability of podcasting?

There's a lot of fee dumping going on at the moment, which has consequences: There's a tendency to produce more cheap podcasts, such as talk formats instead of fully narrated stories. But even in post-production, there's no money left for experimentation or precision in editing, which lowers the quality of the productions. And especially when this is important to small production companies, they can't keep up with their prices and go under. In the worst case, only the very large companies remain, producing more and more of the same: celebrity shows and cheaply produced true crime podcasts.

Do you see your database as a model for other European countries? What would your advice be for creators who want to start a similar initiative for their own market?

Definitely. There should be transparency in every industry in every country. I don't see any disadvantages in openly discussing money, fees, or salaries. Secrecy only really helps those who exploit others. Anyone who wants to start something like that can simply create a Google Doc. We chose a small provider that doesn't collect data like Google might. However, that does cost a bit of money per month.

How do your roles in running hauseins and So Many Voices Festival influence your stance for fair pay in the industry?

We are very open about advocating for fair pay. Anyone who asks us how much we pay freelancers gets an answer. We base our fees on the fee structure of public broadcasters, specifically Deutschlandfunk. This means we pay €50 per hour. When these figures are public, they will hopefully encourage other freelancers not to settle for €20 or €30 per hour for a complexly produced podcast. At the last So Many Voices, our podcast conference, we started talking with 30-40 people about fair working conditions. This will lead to a Code of Fairness, which we plan to finalize at the conference in November and then encourage as many companies as possible to sign a commitment.

Do you think a single, pan-European fair pay database is possible or are the market differences between countries too big?

I actually think country-specific databases make more sense. In Germany, I have to earn more to enjoy a decent living than in other countries, so the comparison is somewhat skewed. Of course, it's still interesting to get an insight into other markets – but perhaps you could link to newly emerging databases in your newsletter and we can browse a bit through the data...

Editor’s Note: If you have a database of fair pay in podcasting from your country that you’d like to share with the Eurowaves community, send it my way. You can refer to the AIR ratesheet for a great example of fair pay research and reporting.

What's your number one tip for podcasters and audio creators in advocating for themselves to be fairly paid and their work fairly respected?

It helped me tremendously to fight more aggressively for higher fees when my colleague Katrin Rönicke and I founded hauseins. Because then I suddenly no longer had to stand up just for myself, but for our employees. That was much easier for me – and I think you can also use it as a trick when you're a freelancer and fighting for yourself: pretending to be your own best friend or big sister and you’re negotiating for someone else. That makes you braver.