The End of Infidel Guy

October 28, 2008 By Guest Contributor 15 Comments

Reggie Finley, a.k.a. The Infidel Guy, has been having a rough time lately. His radio show isn’t doing too well and he’s losing members fast.

Over the past 3 years we have lost over 75% of our subscriber base. Over 95% of the cancellations were the result of gold members losing their jobs. This isn’t enough to keep the site going as well as my children fed and healthy. After fighting and losing to keep staff and volunteers, I just [have October] to throw in the towel. After struggling for years to make IG.com a success, I am now heavily considering re-enlisting into the Army again. This is no joke! Infidelguy.com is now currently in it’s most dire state since it’s inception in 1999.

It’s sad to see the show dying out, but anyone could have predicted this. Reggie had one of the most popular internet radio shows about atheism well before anyone else was doing it. His show was around before podcasts changed how internet radio worked.

Now, though, you don’t need to pay money to hear quality shows that discuss atheism or have interviews with non-religious authors or thinkers. Those other shows get fantastic guests and many have better quality production.

That’s not to say Reggie isn’t doing all he can, but it’s tough to compete for listeners when you’re just one guy and the other podcasts are produced and marketed by atheist publications and organizations.

To his credit, Reggie’s show takes listener phone calls. You can call in to speak to the guest. Other shows don’t do that. That’s not enough to separate his show from all the others, though.

As one commenter on NoGodBlog says, the way to compete in this environment is to offer a completely different business model. People aren’t going to pay for recordings when similar ones are available at no cost. So money would have to be made in another way.

What suggestions do you have? Or is this just a losing battle?

Filed Under: General 15 Comments
  • http://www.drzach.net Zachary Moore

    It’s unfortunate, but I agree. Internet radio streaming isn’t as convenient or as portable as podcasts, of which the vast majority are free. I’m a stark example – Reggie handed me over the “Evolution 101″ concept, and I produced it for free. I could buy a couple pizzas on the amount of money that’s been donated to me for my podcasting, but I sure as hell couldn’t live on it. It also doesn’t help that the primary demographic for his show is young and certaianly not wealthy. If I were in Reggie’s shoes, I would get involved with one of the national atheist groups and put my talents to use working for them. He certainly has the skills and the notoriety to appeal to a group that might be able to give him a modest salary.

    It’s also no shame to shut the show down altogether. His catalogue of shows is a remarkable testament to his contribution to the atheist community, and quite frankly he doesn’t have anything more to prove at this point. I’d rather see him earn a good living doing something else than scrape by just to give his audience something that they clearly can’t (or won’t) pay for.

  • http://infidelicacy.blogspot.com/ Steve

    I enjoyed listening to Reggie when I first discovered atheist podcasts, and I got myself a gold membership. After a while I started noticing annoying things he’d do, like talk about sex when interviewing female guests in a way that would create a bit of an uncomfortable moment or arguing with a guest about minutiae for fifteen minutes or more, even if he mostly agreed with the guests point of view.

    As I saw this occurring with more frequency, and having to a.) find the shows on his difficult to navigate web site and b.) to run circles around iTunes to get his shows into the right categories I just stopped.

    I admire him for being a pioneer, but I think that the times have changed and he hasn’t kept up. He might have better luck if he could find a large freethought group he can associate with and use their fund to pay for the broadcast, like what the ACA, FFRF and Minnesota Atheists do.

  • Sean

    I think Reggie’s shows are great – up to a point. He is a poor interviewer and his commentary can be a little vacuous. I cringe every time he ‘reeeeealy’, as it sound patronizing to both the listener and the interviewee. It will be sad to see him go though, he is a pioneer and he has my respect for that alone. There are better shows out there though, the non-prophets from Texas being a fine example, with more cerebral characters. I agree with what has been said by other commentators, Reggie should use the credibility he as earned over the years and look for work with a like-minded group. I wish him and his family well and i hope he can stay away from the military if he doesn’t really want it.

  • Larry Huffman

    I agree with the others…even to the point of agreeing that Reggie can be annoying when interviewing, sometimes.

    But, variety is good, and while most of us have found broader ways to fulfill our need for atheist news, talk-shows and commentaary…that is not to say that Reggie will not be missed.

    In fact…I think he should go to one of these very large competitors of his and join them. He obviously struck a chord initially, and he was one of the pioneering people in their space. It would seem that he would make a good co-host or could fill an editorial role or such with one.

    Whatever the case, Reggie and his Infidel Guy show will always be an important figure in the history of the atheist information age.

  • http://www.meetup.com/beltwayatheists Shelley Mountjoy

    I love Reggie… haven’t talked to him in a year or more because I’ve been busy with other things but he’s very good at responding to this listeners and he seems to have a talent for picking interesting topics. It would be a shame to loose his contribution to the secular community. I hope he joins a larger group as well.

  • Aj

    The interview style was unbearable, reeeeally and there wasn’t any interesting content beyond the guests. The only “atheist” podcast I listen to is Point of Inquiry, and not often. Subscription models would be hard even for the bigger and better podcasts out there.

  • SerTyrion

    I’ve only been listening to podcast for like… 15 months or so. And, I won’t listen to a podcast where I have to pay. I stumble upon way more podcasts than I know what to do with (and I’m anal about clearing out the archive and listening to all the old stuff first). There are too many free choices to worry about pay ones. I might be mischaracterizing his show requiring pay… I haven listened to it.

    If you want some good atheistic podcasts… The Atheist Experience (takes live callers), The Non-Prophets (my favorite), Apologia (From Dr. Zach Moore), Point of Inquiry, The Reason Driven Podcast, Reasonable Doubts, and Another Goddamned Podcast.

  • Maseca

    I listen to the IG in podcast form, as streaming radio is just horribly inconvenient.

    I’ll agree with the other posters who mentioned that Reggie’s style is cloying, and that makes it difficult to listen to. His best shows IMO are those with Bob Price, and on those episodes, Dr. Price is doing most of the talking!

    The atheist podcast “market” is saturated, and honestly, Reggie’s just hasn’t kept up. Will I be sorry to see him go? I guess, just based on his significance to the community. But I won’t particularly miss the podcast. There are plenty of others to fill that void.

  • Adrian

    I always had a hard time with his show and his interview style. Even when it was available for free it would drive me nuts. But it has been alive for a while and on the generous assumption that people aren’t subscribing because they really lost their job and aren’t just trying to be nice, Reggie needs to look seriously at his business model.

    For a start, I know that $4.50/mo gets you access to all of the archives but people subscribe to something if they expect to get continually good content. Are his radio shows really worth that? iTunes used to charge about $1/episode for tv shows so you could get The Daily Show or The Colbert Report for a month or you could get The Infidel Guy. If you’re among the six people in the world that think it’s still a good value, since then many shows stream for free and Reggie still charges.

    People aren’t buying what he’s selling. He can blame the economy or he can do something about it. Get sponsors, sell ads, do interviews with authors and ask their publicist for a contribution, sell merchandise, write a book.

    I say he should seriously consider either finding a new person to conduct the interviews or find a co-host because a common refrain is that Reggie, while inspired, cannot stand up to the quality of talent that his competitors offer. If he insists on staying, take some classes in broadcasting or journalism or something and learn how to improve his interview skills.

    If he’s doing a call-in show then I think he should make it more interesting. Liven things up. Come with some prepared rants or anything to generate controversy or interest. And otherwise scrap the live format and record the calls so you can do some post-production and editing.

    Right now Reggie is selling something that very few people are buying. Change your product, change your marketing, change your customers or change your business. Wake up. Whatever you’re doing now is clearly not working.

  • Derek H.

    In all of the critiques, I didn’t see anyone explicit mention my biggest gripe. He never paid attention to his guests. Whenever I listened, I could tell he was just reading the comments in the chat room. It’s kind of the nature of the beast when you’re allowing questions from the chat room, but the obvious solution would be to ignore them. Or just have someone else watching it. He said reeeaally when he wasn’t listening. There were many times of awkward silence where the guest would stop talking, and he never picked up to ask a follow-up or continue the discussion. It was annoying and I had to stop listening after a few.

  • http://www.secularplanet.org Secular Planet

    Almost 3/4 of his subscribers (95% of 75%) have lost their jobs in the past three years? I’m sorry, but I’m very skeptical of that claim. It just doesn’t add up.

    I’m sorry to see him go off the air. It wasn’t the best podcast, but I enjoyed it most of the time. I wish him the best of luck.

  • Spork

    His desperate plea to feed his children and keep him out of the army indicate the level of quality one can expect from him. Very little.

    Look, this is media evolution in its best form. He failed to adapt to the new media evolutionary cycle of ditching lame subscriber models and streaming radio in favor of free podcasts with inserted advertising content such as Audible.com adverts. He is a creature who is not fit to survive in the new media environment as long as he is unwilling to adapt to the external forces shaping that media space. If he continues to ignore the trends and preferences of his target audience, he deserves to be forced to shut down, and a new evolutionary dead end in new media will terminate.

    Oh, and he is an extremely shitty interviewer. That really doesn’t help much at all.

  • Obermeister

    InfidelGuy will always have a special place in my heart since I credit Reggie’s show for completing my deconversion and helping me sort out what I actually believed. It was never that professional of a production, but it was really easy to call in with questions and talk to the guests, which sometimes were top notch. Where else are you going to get a chance for some one-on-one with Richard Dawkins? Since I got to know Reggie a little bit, it always felt more like sitting around a room talking with my friends, while Richard Dawkins just happened to be present and talking with us.

    I agree with the others that his business model has serious problems – the world is a different place than it was in 1999. I think I’ve always felt that Reggie was just doing what was in his heart, and not necessarily trying to run a business. Personal appeals can only go so far though – passing the collection plate works fine for churches, but I don’t know how well it translates when your soul isn’t depending on it.

    Personally I stopped subscribing because I really felt that I wasn’t getting anything additional out of it beyond what the show had already given me: I couldn’t stand to listen to any more christian apologists repeat the same tired arguments. I don’t need any more convincing that these ancient myths are just that, myths. I don’t listen to any atheist podcasts currently, it’s just not something I feel I can learn anything new from anymore.

  • http://uncrediblehallq.net/blog/ The Uncredible Hallq

    For me, it comes down to:

    His website.

    And it’s user friendliness.

    You see, I once signed up for a gold membership with Reggie. And I once gave money to the Rational Response Squad. But both sucked in terms of the user-friendliness of the websites. If I can’t figure out how to get shows directly delivered to my RSS feed aggregator, it’s not worth my trouble. Period.

  • Spork

    Yeah, well…this isn’t the first time.

    http://friendlyatheist.com/156/no-more-infidel-guy/