Indie Podcasters vs. Big Radio

skepticality writes "The weekly news and business magazine BusinessWeek has an article coming out in this weeks edition that highlights Skepticality, Coverville, AMP, and other indipendant podcasts and podcast networks. The article explains how a small number of indie podcasts are holding their own against the corporate and big-radio shows in the iTunes top 20 rankings." From the article: "In one of the shortest trajectories yet for a new Internet technology, podcasting has gone from the hands of indie developers to media giants in less than a year. Credit Apple. With typical finesse, it has created a centralized, easy-to-use service on iTunes that makes it a snap to find and listen to podcasts, the audio recordings that can be downloaded from the Net and played on a computer or portable music player. Apple also put out a new version of the iTunes software, which makes it easy for people to create their own podcasts, and invited all to post their creations on the site. Indie podcasters such as Kempenaar and Hallgren rejoiced, ready for the mainstream to embrace the technology they had championed."

Comments

Big Radio and Australia

[dysprosia]

Seems like some "Big Radio" stations in Australia are embracing podcasting; ABC Radio National at least is offering some of its programs as podcasts here, and it appears to be going very well for RN...

Dont call them podcasts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please stop calling these things 'podcasts'? They're downloadable mp3s, when did iPods start supporting only mp3? Why not call them rivercasts, or zencasts?

Re:Dont call them podcasts.

[JeffTL]

Same reasons I've seen certain academics say "blogosphere" with a straight face when I know they know as well as I do that there is already a name for the connected totality of HTML documents served over the Internet on HTTP servers -- the "World Wide Web" comes to mind.

It makes some Guardian (from whence the word came, according to Wikipedia) and New York Times readers feel satisfied that they've read some technology and mass media news for the week.

The irony of podcasting

[the_unknown_soldier]

The irony of podcasting is that it was created to circumvent big media companies. The itms top 20 suggests that as much as people love to tell themselves "I hate those clear channel motherfuckers" When it comes down to it, thats all people really want.

Re:The irony of podcasting

[An Onerous Coward]

It simply doesn't matter if 19 of the top 20--or even 99 of the top 100--shows are the product of "big media". The point isn't that podcasting provides an alternative to big media. It's that it provides alternatives, full stop. If your neighbor wants to do a show wherein he spends an hour each week just talking about his dog, Fifi, he can do it, and reach just about anyone in the world who wants to tune in.

Ten years ago, nobody could choose the Fifi Variety Hour. It isn't surprising that big media can garner the name recognition, advertising clout, market research, and (let's face it) talent to keep a large majority of people choosing their product. Podcasting is still a great leveller, because now they have to compete with every no-name garage DJ on the basis of product quality, rather than on the basis of "I have a radio station and you don't."

If some people only want to use podcasting as a convenient way to listen to radio programming, who cares? It doesn't detract from your ability to produce your own show, or my ability to listen to it. As the systems for matching people to interesting content improve (and boy will they ever), big media is either going to have to expand its offerings to cover a wide variety of new niches, or watch their audience reject them in favor of content that more precisely reflects their own interests.

Too much praise...

[thelost]

for iTunes. I'm sorry but the iTunes top 20 is hardly representative of the current health of indie podcasts. The most recent version of iTunes with podcast support has only been around a short while; I've been using it and it is functionally quite satisfying but I certainly wouldn't trust it's charts as a reasonable way to measure any kind of health in the indie movement.

Market research

[jurt1235]

That is why big stations do market research so that they can target their broadcasts and podcasts to the consumer. A successfull podcaster will have to address the same group (compete) or a group which is now not addressed since it is commercially not attractive. To compete is tough, you have to fight big money, so yes, the big ones win again with this.

Re:Am i the only one...

[Tx]

I'm with you on that one. Though it's syndicated downloading rather than streaming. But yeah, definitely needs to be called something else.

Wow..

[QaBOjk]

Streaming audio, i never heard of this before.. Apple thinks of everything!!!

Has to be said...

[Darth Maul]

Podcasting, like a lot of other deployments of technology (think the Web), was a lot more useful before The Man got a hold of it. Before the new iTunes came along, we had places like iPodder.org and podcastalley to list podcasts, and on those sites it was all about indepedent podcasts. There were a few more "official" ones from radio stations and whatnot, but they just weren't as popular.

Now with iTunes it's back to the same techniques using marketing and flashy graphics for the iTunes banner thingy for a particular podcast, so the same masses that tune into clearchannel will click on these new links. And the worst part is now everyone thinks there "in" because they listen to a podcast.

I think it's sad to see the iTunes top 20 - it's mostly corporate overproduced junk. To me, the whole point of podcasting is to listen to what I want to listen to, not just have another medium for corporate radio junk. Most of the podcasts I listen to aren't even on the iTunes list at all because (oh, the horror) they might play material that is not properly licensed because of copyright issues. It's almost like I feel I have gone "underground" to listen to the *real* podcasts.

iTunes rankings

[gozar]

The rankings are based on how many new subscribers the show has received, not total subscribers for a show. That means established shows will probably have a larger listener base but might not be in the top 20.

Re:True definition of podcast

[ultranova]

How does that post bash homosexuals?

It implies that they are Mac users ;).

What's with all this aggression?

[child_of_mercy]

OK, so who feels threatened by this format?

Why the need for this denigration?

Unlike broadcasters podcasters have to pay for every listener (yes, there is blog torrent but it does limit the audience)

I live in a town (Canberra, Australia) which is off the map as far as music producers are concerned, yet nothing can get on the air if it hasn't come from the big studios.

So we gather around a condensor mic once a week. We drink some beer, we talk some crap, and we get local musos to come in and play their stuff.

We like how it sounds, quite a lot of audio snobs like how it sounds.

A few hundred people around the world like it enough they send us postcards.

Where's the harm?

We belch, fart, spark up, talk in away that would get a broadcaster thrown off the air and we ask nothing of you at all. So where's all this agro coming from?

To anticipate the next question the feed is here:

http://the-riotact.com/?cat=39

A summary of the content is here:

http://loadedog.com/pod/pod.shtml

(and quietly scope my karma and user number before accusing me of being some kind of shill)

To return to the point, some podcasts will be crap, some (ok a very few) will be good. Much like blogs. But as no-one is forcing you to listen, or blasting it through the local spectrum, what'ss the problem exactly?