By now, according to a recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 22 million adults in the United States own iPods or other MP3 players - and 29 percent of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web.

The word "podcasting" was coined last summer when former MTV veejay Adam Curry came up with it to describe the process of sending Internet radio and audio blogs from his computer to his Apple iPod.

Consumers could already listen to quite a bit of radio programming on their desktop or laptop computers, but podcasting added a degree of portability to radio listening that is in some ways comparable to the historic introduction of transistor radios a half-century ago.

It was revolutionary when listeners were able to take their music to the beach or the park, but in those days they still had to listen to whatever the radio stations were playing.

Now, with podcasting, listeners can choose the programming they want to download from the Internet and listen whenever they want.

Not only do listeners have many more choices now than they did in the 1950s, they also have the option of creating their own programming and delivering it to the rest of the digitally connected world.

Broadcasters - including public radio stations - see a market there.

Los Angeles station KCRW recently began podcasting its news and public-affairs programs. The station's webmaster, Jason Georges, told United Press International that, for now at least, podcasting is a relatively cost-free proposition.

"The money involved in producing the podcasts is no more than the money we spend on our existing online budget for bandwidth and staffing," he said. "If it grows exponentially, then we'll have to look at buying more bandwidth."

In theory, of course, if traffic increases for KCRW podcasts, the station's subscriber base should grow as well - helping the station cover added costs through increased listener donations.

The station is taking concrete steps to expand its listener base - including getting some of its locally originated programming added to the schedule of stations in other markets.

For example, "The Business" - a weekly half-hour discussion of entertainment-industry issues - recently began airing on New York public station WNYC.

The show taps into a growing public interest in the "inside baseball" aspects of Hollywood - an interest that most commonly manifests itself during water-cooler conversations about box-office numbers and upcoming release schedules.

The host of "The Business," Daily Variety reporter Claude Brodesser, told UPI that kind of public curiosity about the movie and TV industry makes it possible to put a show like his on radio.

"I'd be off the air if we aimed at people who just subscribed to Variety," he said.

Brodesser said his show's producers assume that its core listeners are fascinated by Hollywood and interested in how the entertainment business affects the wider culture.

Like the transistor before it - and like so many other technological advances - podcasting has the potential to change the way we work and live.

Like the video and audio recording equipment that is becoming increasingly accessible to more and more people, it promises to democratize media production and distribution.

Still, Georges is confident that the coming multitudes of podcasters will not squeeze professional broadcasters out of podcasting.

"When (the desktop publishing program) PageMaker came out, everybody thought, 'I don't need graphic artists anymore because I can do it myself,'" he said. "But there was still a need for producers because they could do a quality job."

As the number of media delivery systems has proliferated, so the audience has fragmented.

Viewers who used to coalesce in massive numbers around a small handful of programming sources now gather in relatively smaller groups to consume media in an environment that offers not only hundreds of cable channels, but also a wide variety of other choices including DVDs and video games.

Podcasting could accelerate that fragmentation by allowing listeners to create their own personal media environments - unique to each listener and unavailable to anyone else. On the other hand, Georges said podcasting could have a unifying effect on our culture.

"You're expanding the diversity of your audience with a common media," he said. "They may be on the beach, at their desk, in the car or walking the dog, but they're all listening to the same content."

For now, Brodesser said consumers in major metropolitan areas - "leading-edge consumers," he calls them - are adopting podcasting more readily than those in smaller markets. But he said people in smaller markets are likely to get up to speed with the technology before long.

"Things eventually get to the hinterlands," he said. "Given the way digital music has already started to unravel what we consider to be an album, the fact that in more rural areas it might be hard to get a good radio signal, you may find where there isn't a lot of radio choice, people become their own deejays and iPods allow them to do that."

The Taipei Times recently reported that Curry has met with leading U.S. media and advertising executives to talk about taking podcasting mainstream.

"It is totally going to kill the business model of radio," he told the paper.

Curry said mainstream media is losing the ability to deliver audiences to advertisers.

"They are scared to death of the next generation - like my daughter who is 14 - who don't listen to radio," he said.

"They are on MSN, they've got their iPod, their MP3 player, they've got their Xbox - they are not listening to radio. So how are they going to reach these audiences?"

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express
The latest information about the Commercial Satellite Industry

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News