Most indie shows die before episode ten, not from bad content, but from publishing with no distribution plan and no idea that a copyrighted intro track needs a PRS or PPL licence before you upload it.

I got a takedown notice on episode six for using a track I'd bought once on iTunes, on the reasonable-sounding assumption that buying a song meant I could use it. It doesn't, and that's not how sync licensing works: buying a track gives you a personal listening licence, not the right to broadcast it as part of a commercial or even semi-commercial podcast. In the UK, that usually means clearing the rights through PRS for Music, which licenses the composition and songwriting, and PPL, which licenses the specific sound recording, genuinely separate bodies covering separate rights, which is why so many indie creators get caught assuming one licence covers both. I pulled the episode, rebuilt my intro from a properly licensed music library, and lost three weeks of momentum I didn't have to lose. That mistake, and watching a dozen other indie creators make a version of it since, is why this group exists, and why it's free, not freemium, not a funnel to a paid upsell, actually free. Since that takedown I've grown a show to Apple's UK Top 20 Business chart without a network deal, which means without anyone else's distribution machine, sales team, or production budget behind it, just a plan built the unglamorous way.

The mechanics that actually decide whether an indie show survives rarely get covered anywhere. Your RSS feed, not your Instagram, is the actual product, hosted somewhere like Acast, Spotify for Podcasters, or Buzzsprout and syndicated out to every app; if your feed metadata is wrong or your episodes are hosted somewhere that throttles bandwidth, listeners drop off before they ever reach your content. Sponsorship in the UK is typically priced on CPM, cost per thousand downloads, usually measured in a defined window after release under IAB guidelines, and UK CPMs for indie shows sit well below what US-facing shows can command, which means a realistic pitch deck matters more than a big follower count. And because most indie podcasters are sole traders or run through a small limited company, sponsorship income is taxable, needs declaring through Self Assessment or corporation tax depending on structure, and VAT becomes relevant if turnover across all your income streams crosses £90,000 in a rolling year, which catches creators who don't think of a podcast as a "real business" until HMRC does.

What we cover inside:

Rights and licensing first. Nothing goes out to the group's feed review without a licensing check. Members learn the difference between PRS, PPL, and a properly licensed music library before they ever hit publish on episode one.

Feed and distribution architecture. We treat the RSS feed as the core product: correct metadata, reliable hosting, and syndication across every major app, because a great episode nobody's feed delivers properly might as well not exist.

Monetisation with real numbers. Sponsorship rates, affiliate deals, and listener funding all get benchmarked against real UK CPMs and real download numbers, not aspirational figures copied from a US case study, alongside the tax and VAT basics for when that income actually starts arriving.

Community and cross-promotion. Members swap guest slots and interview introductions across shows, consistently the fastest way an indie podcast finds its first few hundred genuinely engaged listeners without paying for ads it can't yet justify.

Every fortnight there's a monetisation workshop where members bring real download numbers and pitch decks for review, and every week there's a feedback thread where new episodes get a listen and honest notes before they go out to the public feed. Inside the group you'll find feed and distribution setup guidance for the major UK hosting platforms, a plain-English PRS/PPL licensing explainer so intro music stops being a legal risk, and an archive of every past workshop recording, searchable by topic, for members who join partway through a season. A realistic publishing cadence a creator can actually sustain gets set early, because a daily upload schedule that collapses by week six does more damage than publishing weekly and actually keeping to it. New members usually start with a licensing audit of their existing episodes before anything else, since that's the fastest way to find a problem before a rights holder does.

This is for anyone building an independent podcast or media brand in the UK, from a pre-launch idea through to a show already doing six-figure downloads a year, who wants to do the boring parts properly. It isn't for anyone looking for viral growth hacks or a shortcut around licensing because "everyone does it anyway." Members who stay through a full season typically leave with a licensed, properly distributed show and a media kit that's actually been pitched to brands.

✅ Feed and distribution setup guidance for Acast, Spotify for Podcasters, and Apple Podcasts
✅ PRS/PPL licensing basics so your intro music doesn't trigger a takedown
✅ Fortnightly sponsorship pitch and rate-card workshop, benchmarked against real UK CPMs
✅ Guest-swap introductions to grow an audience without paid ads

Members who stick around typically end up with a show that's properly licensed, distributed without gaps, and pitched to at least one sponsor using real numbers instead of guesswork, plus a backlog of feedback from people who actually listened to the episode instead of skimming the show notes. Free to join, because good indie media shouldn't be gatekept by a network deal.