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How Podcasting and Satellite Changed Radio
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine discusses how podcasting changes the radio industry: "Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry."
The article notes about some advertising deals that podcasters managed to procure, but it also notes that another industry, satellite radio, represented by Sirius and XM Satellite radio, is already changing the radio landscape."
There is all this hype about podcasting but nothing about shoutcasting or other forms of internet radio -- which have been aroudn longer and have more than quite a bit of a userbase...
....am I the only one who's had absolutely no experience, nor been affected by either podcasting or satellite radio? I'm tempted to just write it off as a fad... who'd spend time downloading a multi-hour 'podcasting' program just to play later?
I personally would much rather go for a personal selection of mp3s.
To me, the advantage of radio is that stations exist that broadcast programming in specific formats. I can tune into these stations anytime and listen to programming that I enjoy.
For example, 3 FM stations exists within 25 miles of me that have 24/7 jazz formats. I'm a jazz fan, so that makes me happy.
I'm not aware of any podcast sources that provide comparable services. Podcasts require that I go out and find digital files I want and then set them up for play. I don't have the time to do that to build up a podcast playlist as lengthy as the one I can get just be turning on my radio.
There's no reason why someone couldn't hire a staff, pay them to create and collect podcasts and then broadcast them over AM or FM on a 24/7 format, but that would be very much the same as radio anyway.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I stopped listening to radio a long time ago - my MP3-cd player for the car was the best money I ever spent. Aside from our commercial-free public radio (CBC) I have only occasionall listened to commercial radio, and was driven off by the advertising within a few minutes. The only thing that is missing from my de-commercialized listening experience is a way to inject new music and news into the stream of music I have chosen so as to keep it fresh.
So - why not broadcast cue information about which stations are playing what so my (yet to be invented) intelligent radio/player can dash seamlessly between stations and canned tracks whilst avoiding the blaring Ads with tivo-like grace. We do it with the remote on television to avoid the chaff, why not with radio?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the allure of Cable TV when it was introduced in the late 70's? I've never been much into TV, and didn't get cable til I hit my mid 30's, but I seem to remember that a lack of commercials was part of what you paid for.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
Another inane buzzword fad cooked up by the idiotic blog crowd. WTF is so special about downloading audio files of these morons talking?
I'm in the WTF boat myself.
:-)
But then, I stopped listening to radio years ago- I pull my weather from the *.gov, and get everything else through iTunes and the internets. I once heard podcasting described as "an audio blog"- my response was something along the lines of "just what I want to hear- more talk radio."
Blogs have given us a few million Spider Jerusalem wannabes- podcasting and cheap cams will give us a few million Edison Carter wannabes. While technology has decimated the entry barrier and given any medium to anyone with enough motivation to make a try for it, it's done nothing to make it easier to sort through the crap and find the good stuff (example- webcomics. Finding a good webcomic that's not run by someone who's even better at marketing is a crapshoot).
Stern, Limbaugh (sp?), et. al. irritate the everloving crap out of me- if I wanted a cult-of-personality circlejerk I'd buy a TV and watch the local news. Those jackoffs can't seem to get their faces off of billboards, and they look a few notches up the percieved quality scale from all of the radio "personalities" splattered across same. Stern went to XM- that's good, he can stay there. I don't miss him. If podcasting is similar, then I'm so far out of the demographic that I'm orbiting pluto.
If I really want talk radio, I can pipe an infobot or eliza through a speach synthesizer and be done with it.
"Consider the basics: With no licenses, no frequencies, and no towers, ordinary people are busy creating audio programming for thousands of others. They're bypassing an entire industry"
They'd sue you, buy your congressmen to get the laws changed, and consider you a criminal for being enthusiastic about the art and the industry.
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... is that these "specific formats" typically consist of a 200 song playlist. There were a hell of a lot more hit singles in the 80s- nevermind hit albums or hit artists.
:-| And College Radio can't get the OMFG TECHNO OMFG GANSTA RAP OMFG HIPPY MUSIC out of their systems either.
I listened to the local Clear Channel Alternapop Earcock a couple of days ago for the first time in months... in a thirty minute span, I didn't hear anything I haven't heard a few hundred times before, and years previously. Last I checked, Radiohead has written more songs than "Creep"- but you wouldn't know it to listen to these asshats.
When I got to this town (Pittsburgh) in 1997, there was a Jazz station parked at 104.{5|7}. It was nice and I listened to it quite a bit... until one day it magically Changed Format to hiphop/r&b. Just like that. A few years later and that frequency is a black hole of Rod Stewart / Michael Bolton-esque soft rock.
Radio's great when you're in the serviced demographic- if you're noti, it's a vast, staticy wasteland.
It was... and now look at it today. Commercials all over the place and even a lot of dedicated commercial tv stations (Home Shopping Network or whatever its called). As much as I hate most radio, if people switch to Satellite I only see it becoming worse and satellite becoming just as bad.
Reserved Word.
Commercial radio is BAD. It stopped being about anything besides delivering specific market segment a long time ago and a medium radio is capable of so much more.
It is only natural that somone that isn't as beholden to advertisers can be more creative and produce a higher quality product. Public radio has been demonstrating this for a long long time (at least here in MN).
Sirius/XM is cool and is an extension of the cable/sat TV business model, but I wonder about Podcasting. It's one thing to spam your signal in an unlimited fashion like radio can, but the infrastructure costs of pod casting could be an issue. Streaming and downloads are like collect calls and we all know that there is no free lunch when it comes to bandwidth. I think the bandwith costs will probably limit the growth of internet based distribution significantly...
It seems pretty obvious to me that as things continue on the current trend that it won't be too much longer that "videocasting" and the like will start to upset the right people in TV and Cable land . I could easily see that the only thing you have to pay for is bandwidth (which is enough in and of itself) and anyone with a server, the bandwidth, and a video camera could start "broadcasting" their show over the internet. Commercial (I know of the free ones as well, but that is another topic entirely) products like "Windows Media Center" that are sold in stores will make it so that the average user can now watch Star Trek New Voyages on their TV. If you want your fan films to show up, you just have to plug into their API and WAMO! you've got a million viewers (certian assumptions made...like its worth watching). I think the "numa-numa" kid, and the jedi-kid prove that this is where things are heading. The real question is, how much kicking and screaming will the "traditional" broadcasting folk make? or will they jump on the bandwagon?
In the US perhaps. Except in the UK we've had DAB for almost two years and DAB receivers are both cheap and widespread. And nobody would even dream of getting satelite radio. And 'podcasting' is just an excuse to shout "iPod! iPod!" ad infinitum. But then we have the BBC and you just have a load of crappy commercial broadcasters... Poor you...
But first came Slashdot to show the way...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
DAB and Digital TV are already going full steam with the backing of the BBC. The BBC want to start podcasting soon, so that might help it take off here, as soon as they get legal problems sorted.
As for podcasting ever killing commercial radio, you might as well expect amateur movies filmed by bloggers to destroy Hollywood and music on Creative Commons to kill EMI.
Podcasting really needs a better name. The 'pod' bit, is just another commercial plug for Apple. It wouldn't be acceptable to call all PCs 'Window-machines', would it? Or websites 'Internet Explorer sites'?
I have an iRiver H120. On their front page they have someone listening to their new mini player, whilst crunching on a juice apple. Subtle?
how about 2600.com?
how about leo laporte's radio show?
i do agree, Podcasting is very close to what the web is, lots of annoying tripe. think of it this way, every time you hear a podcast with lots of soundeffects and trying to sound like a big-time DJ, that's the equliviant of the html BLINK tag or an annoying animated GIF.
Lots of the NPR shows are available as a podcast.
Right now there are only a few good outlets of quality programming for podcasts, that will continue as well as the tripe. example? sure, one called the Wizards of technology, they suck horribly! every show is 15 minutes of talking about HOW to get the podcast or WHERE to get the podcast and then the rest of it is nothing more than mindless drivel with no content. Also the guy that is claiming he started podcasting, that out of work MTV Vee-jay. His podcasts are pretty mind numbing, he tries to keep you awake by saying a bit of profanity here and there.
Granted, I am glad they are producing the drivel, some people out there are eating it up. But overall it is making radio shows sit up and pay attention. Click and Clack from NPR will be podcasting soon as well as I hear roumors that howard Stern will be offering a PAY-FOR podcast of his show.
that is something else, I am willing to pay a buck to download a podcast that is worthwile if they are not interested in getting advertising to sponsor them... and I'm not the only one.
My biggest problem is that all the podcast apps SUCK. they all assume you use iTunes and an ipod. I dont.
I want one to simply write the files and a properly formatted m3u file.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The entire point of Howard Stern leaving broadcast radio was partially because he was sick of being harassed by the FCC, thanks to extremist right-wing Christian groups. The government is not regulating cable, and will not be regulating satellite radio any time in the near future. With Cable, advertising dollars fuel it, and advertisers aren't willing to pay for anything they deem as risky during the day. With Satellite, it's subscriber based and not advertisement based, like cable's pay-per-view, so the dynamics are completely different and your blanket statement does not apply here.
That's why you'll start hearing about "podcast safe" music - usually by independent artists or small labels that explicitly give permission for their songs to be included in a podcast.
Hopefully podcasters will keep this under control so that the paid for leaches in congress don't start passing legislation that would hurt this.
For public radio stations and alternative news/music organizations podcasting is awesome! I could see some podcast producers being picked up by radio show distributors. Coverville, for example, would be an excellent show even on terrestrial radio.
Try the Dawn and Drew show http://www.dawnanddrew.com/.
It's quite funny, really. There are others, as well, including a podcast of Air America's daily programming (http://www.airamericaplace.com/), which you'll get a few days late, but is still entertaining (especially for those of us stuck in the Hannitized Savage Nation of Rush).
What most people here don't seem to understand is that podcasting is, currently, a purely talk format. Since most talk radio (with rare exceptions, above) is directed at a very specific Rapture Right listenership, it's nice to have lots of topics and styles to choose from. Music barely enters into it, unless the subject is music.
A news story I read the other day about Podcasting being picked up by churches used the word "Godcasting". I wanted to puke. http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_2596528
/.
Via one of my fav. news sites, right up there with
http://www.witchvox.com/xwrensnest.html
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