Radio Advertising Services for Radio Advertisers, Radio Stations and Advertising Agencies Radio Advertising: News & Insight Featuring: Commentary About Radio Advertising Receive: Newsletter About Audio Graphics Contact Privacy Policy RRadio Network Great Music - Free Search Engine Rank Audio Graphics Box 23575 Chagrin Falls, Ohio 44023 440.564.7437 Ideas for Your Clients Our Commercial Spec Station Promo Spec Podcasting and Its Blemishes The question is "How do you define successful?" Many moves are being made with podcasting. Some of the figures I've seen say there are 9,000 podcasts being produced today, though how that number is derived nobody's saying. But be generous. Say there are 9,000+ podcasts. How do you define "successful" in their ranks? Is it as the number of listeners each podcast has, or in how many listeners podcasting pulls away from traditional radio? Maybe you see the many radio stations now offering podcasts as a sign it's catching on. None of these can be labelled "successful" at this time, despite what you read. David Coursey headlines his story with "Podcasting is Not the Next Mass Medium" (linked below). He outlines what's been said here many times: To consistently produce an interesting podcast requires more work than a hobbiest podcaster can muster. Mr. Coursey is also the first journalist I've seen that's calling a podcast what it really is - soon-to-be-corporate. But back to that question about success. If your metric concerns numbers of people in the audience, then consider how many podcasts approach being downloaded tens of thousands of times. Those are the numbers you'll need before advertisers take amateur podcasting seriously. Is there anyone that thinks podcasting has put a dent in today's broadcast audience? As for broadcasters adding podcasts, remove the simplicity of replaying the morning show bits and is anyone producing a program just for podcast? Radio is using podcasts to increase reach of existing programs, at a very slow go. What makes podcasting seem so huge is that most writers (with the exception of Mr. Coursey) are creating a world of podcasting that is bigger than life, so their stories are bigger than life. Podcasting will grow, but it will be corporate-produced programming that the listeners will flock to in the future. Only a handful of amateurs will survive the storm. (Keep in mind Adam Curry is not an amateur.) Related Article: Publish Feedback Posted: 12:06 6/29/2005 More News Check Google News for stories on: Radio Industry Radio Advertising Radio Online Internet Radio Search Audio Graphics Search Web Exit