UNO+: How United.no Solved the Podcast Dilemma
Podcasting in Norway can be tough. The market is small, and it’s hard to make real money. If you want reach, you have to stay open. If you want revenue, you have to close.
United.no said yes to both. UNO is open to everyone, with tens of thousands of weekly listens. UNO+ is for paying members — and it’s profitable. The open feed keeps recruiting new listeners, who can then upgrade and get more content. Subrite made it simple to set up.
“Being a Manchester United supporter hasn’t been much fun in recent years, but making this podcast has been one of the most rewarding things we’ve done. We started by building our own studio, and now we’ve built a community of 30,000 listeners who tune in no matter how the team performs. While we’ve focused on content and production, Subrite has helped the podcast grow by providing solid, flexible technical solutions. Thousands of listeners now use the subscription feed for easy access to exclusive content.”
— Eivind B. Holth, host
About United.no and UNO
Manchester United Supporters Club Scandinavia (MUSCS) was Subrite’s first large pilot customer and is the world’s largest United supporters’ club outside England. In 2023, the club set a new record with 45,942 members.
The UNO podcast launched in spring 2023, hosted by Jon Martin Henriksen, Fredrik N. Filtvedt, and Eivind B. Holth. After just six months, the show passed 500,000 plays, and by early 2024, it had passed one million.
Dilemma #1: Open vs. Closed
Quality journalism costs money — and growth requires an open, free podcast.But ad revenues don’t go far in a small market, and when membership works, the upside is much larger. The answer was to differentiate: An open feed for episodes tied to current events, and exclusive bonus content for the truly dedicated.
Dilemma #2: Owning your audience vs. giving it to the platforms
On Spotify and Apple, the platforms own the customer relationship and take up to 30% of the revenue. They decide how you can communicate with your listeners — and what data you get back.
On Podme, Untold, and Podimo, you become part of a larger bundle sold as one subscription. It offers exposure but leaves you as a production supplier, not a publisher with your own audience.