Tom Leykis Has Transitioned

No, not like that.

As he announced he would a month ago, he has ended his live call-in audio show. He last had a regular radio show in 2009, started up this Internet-based call-in audio show in 2012 after his contact with the radio company (and the accompanying paychecks) ended. While that show was placed into subscription podcast format after in ran live on the stream (on which it would be repeated) for free, now Leykis is specifically doing a podcast for paid subscribers, who can also access the content from 2012 onward.

This means he's no longer doing a live, appointment show. It gives him far more flexibility, while trading away caller participation.

While the call-in show generated enough revenue through subscriptions, advertisements, and other ways to more than cover costs (sans a healthy paycheck for Leykis), it is possible he'll make more money from his new podcast format.

How so, given that he won't have as large of an audience for advertisers to reach?

Well, a lot of it depends on how many people continue to subscribe or join anew. Now that there isn't a live show and a limited number of repeats that can be accessed for free, more of his listeners might open their wallets to subscribe: current monthly charges are $11 for Premium Tom, and $19 for Super Premium Tom, which is the same content without advertisements.

As of his last live show, he had approximately 1,900 subscribers. That's $20,900 per month, assuming everyone is only paying $11, and we know many are paying $19.

The costs of offering the podcast is significantly less than the costs of offering a live call-in show:

1) Leykis no longer needs a rented/leased storefront studio. He can operate out of either of his two homes. He doesn't need a phone system for callers.

2) He has been able to drop at least a couple of employees and will not need as much technical assistance.

3) Along with dropping the studio and some employees, his insurance costs have to have dropped.

4) "Freeloaders" will no longer be consuming bandwith, so the costs for that have to be lower from that alone, but since he'll be releasing relatively short podcasts instead of having a 24/7/365 stream, his bandwith costs will be much,  much lower.

Of course the drawback is a lack of calls, but his target audience has been moving away from making actual phone calls, and he can at least take voice mail messages. It also makes it harder for people to discover his show, but that was already an issue since being off of radio, on which people can find you completely by accident.

Leykis has said that as long as the subscriptions more than cover costs, he'll keep offering his archive to subscribers. I will be interested to see, if he's willing to release the information as he has been in the past, if subscriptions rise and stay above 1,900 for a few years, or if they drop to a point that's too low for him to continue. It's probably too much work, but if he would offer a pay-per-episode option for the new podcasts, he might get revenue from people who, for example don't want to pay for his political commentaries but want his money advice, or his dating advice, or his observation about media.

From everything he's said and the state of the radio business, it is doubtful anyone is going to offer him enough money for him to agree to return to live radio, on which he hasn't had a regular show since 2009.