Leigh Sales and Annabel Crab are reaching out to listeners for feedback on their ‘Chatters’ podcast and thoughts on monetising it.

The Chat 10, Looks 3 podcast is a side project for the two ABC personalities that has developed a good fan base over almost 300 episodes.

The pair do live podcast events to crowds of ‘chatters’ around the country and also sell idiosyncratic merchandise like tea towels and door mats through their website and at the live shows.

Since starting the podcast for a bit of fun in 2014, Chat 10 has “grown like a weed,” but production costs have also grown. The pair have also gathered a strong social media following on their 50,000-strong Facebook group and donate money earnt from their live shows to charity.

The website says: “One of the most delightful things about Chat 10 Looks 3 for us has been discovering the teeming world of Chatters out there and the kind things they do for each other. Humans are good! And when we get organised enough to do a live show, we like to pick a charity to support, in honour of all the kind people who support us.” 

It seems that Sales didn’t follow her own hilarious advice during covid, and did indeed start a podcast.

Now it’s become more work than they expected. Sales and Crab discussed options for revenue raising in a recent episode:

“We’ve sent out a newsletter that includes a survey…. we’ve just been completely upfront, frank and honest that, obviously, Crabb and I pay various people to do everything associated with the podcast, except us having this chat, because we have full-time jobs.

“We don’t have all the time in the world to be doing this. We never thought it was going to turn out to be something this big.

“So to keep it fun for ourselves and to keep it to a really minimal amount of time commitment from us, all of the income that comes in… goes to pay people to run the Facebook group and to produce the podcast, run the website, write the newsletter and do the social media. So it’s costing us money to do…and, to be honest, we just need to find ways to make it sustainable.

“We’ve relied very heavily on touring, and that’s becoming increasingly difficult, just logistically with our families. So we need to find other ways to generate income. We don’t want anyone to feel like we’re trying to gouge you, so we’ve just been completely upfront.

“We’ve had a lot of support from people over the years, subscribers, particularly, who are fantastic and just pitch in, even though it doesn’t get you any other privileges. We don’t want to charge for the podcast…

“We’ve had a lot of support from people over the years, subscribers, who are fantastic and just pitch in, even though it doesn’t get you any other privileges. And of course, we have a sort of heaven sent genius in the form of Gwen Blake putting together the greatest merch of any podcast… it’s just so imaginative.”