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Viacom Launches Podcast-Only Radio Station

Posted by timothy on from the mix-tapes-for-crushes dept.

prostoalex writes "Figuring out it couldn't get any worse, Viacom is turning an underperforming talk radio station in San Francisco into podcasting central. KYOU Radio performed so poorly in the ratings that it would not even show up on the official Arbitron radio rankings for the city of San Francisco. Now the Web site of the station owned by $56.5 billion corporation features a hip young look and claims to be the Open Source Radio. Visitors can upload the podcasts of their own in MP3, AIFF, AVI or WMA formats (no OGG support by someone who's so accepting of open source)."

6 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. The Jarvis Take by KrackHouse · · Score: 3, Informative
    From BuzzMachine.
    Now having said all that, I'll repeat that YOURadio is big news and good news for a few reasons: First, it is big media recognizing that it's time to listen -- and do more than listen: Let the people speak. It is big media recognizing the value of citizens' media. Second, it is an admission that the old, one-size-fits-all, top-down, one-way models of programming are broken and the audience can do it better. Third, it an admission that the old business models are soon to break and that the people can provide more talent for less than the old talent could. It's nothing less than the economic salvation of old media... if old media is smart enough to financially support citizens' media and not just exploit it. What's important is that a big media company knew it was time to stick some dynamite up the alimentary canal and push the plunger. It is the tipping point.
    Jay Rosen also has an interesting take on his blog, PressThink here.
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  2. This has already been done by grqb · · Score: 3, Informative
    Openpodcast.org does exactly this, they've been doing this now for a long time. And, there may even be plans to do the same thing over satellite radio (although you'd have to listen to about a 2hr podcast from Adam Curry to learn more)

    shameless plug for my podcast: theWatt Weekly - energy news and discussion in mp3 format

    1. Re:This has already been done by grahams · · Score: 4, Informative

      This article is talking about broadcasting the submitted podcasts over AM radio, which is distinctly and wholly different from Openpodcast.org, as far as I can tell..

  3. Re:podcast != radio by isaac_akira · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did you read the article? Or even read the summary? This *is* radio. A real radio station that is broadcasting people's podcasts *over the airwaves*.

  4. ogg support by Cruciform · · Score: 3, Informative

    Canada's CBC radio supports OGG streams.

    Just check out Quirks and Quarks, a weekly science show broadcast on Saturdays.

  5. Re:podcast != radio by prockcore · · Score: 3, Informative

    A real radio station that is broadcasting people's podcasts *over the airwaves*.

    Goddammit. It's not a podcast if it's not wrapped in RSS. It's just an mp3. This is a *shoutcast* server that lets people submit mp3s to be broadcasted.

    It has *nothing* to do with podcasting. The word "podcast" shouldn't even be used here.

    It's also nothing new. Many shoutcast servers allow people to submit mp3s, many even allow you to "guest DJ" with winamp.