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Mainstream Media Is Tuning In to 'Podcasting'
"Broadcasting" with Apple's iPod gave rise to the word "podcasting."
(Bill O'leary - Twp)
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But Cochrane said he thinks that big-name podcasts from CNN and Walt Disney Co. take away from the whole reason people started doing it in the first place: to talk comfortably and informally to what is sometimes just a handful of loyal fans.
"I think what's so novel about it is that it's your neighbor creating this content," Cochrane said. "It's the person across the street."
It's not clear that there is a mass audience for podcasting, or whether the phenomenon could turn out to be a fad.
Broadcasters see podcasting as a way to reach new listeners. These days, people want the freedom to listen to audio files whenever they feel like it, rather than on the strict schedule of a traditional radio station, said Phil Redo, vice president of station operations and strategy for New York public radio station WNYC.
"We have got to be in those spaces or we run the risk of becoming less relevant to them," Redo said.
In January 2005, WNYC posted its first podcast on its Web site and added three more in March. Before they became available through iTunes, the shows generated about 86,000 downloads a week. Lately, that number has exceeded 125,000.
"It catapults us into a mainstream environment that we otherwise wouldn't get," Redo said.
In the Internet age, there is room in the public eye for both corporate media shows and basement podcasts, just as there's an audience for both mainstream news and Web logs, or blogs, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"There will always be hits driving the media, but the new thing that has entered the culture is that the small niche markets have found their own place," Rainie said.
The addition of podcasts to the mainstream iTunes Web site was the equivalent of putting podcasting "on steroids," introducing it to the masses and enticing new listeners, he said. The effect on podcasts, both corporate and indie, was like "Ed Sullivan putting your act on his show," Rainie said.
Besides, a lot of podcasters just do it for fun and do not seem to care if they have a widespread audience, he said.
"They have things to say," Rainie said. "If it turns out that their six friends and their mother listen to them, that's enough."
Indie podcasters themselves scoffed at the idea of losing their loyal listeners, asserting that any hardcore devotees they have would not fall for the corporate media podcasts that have taken over the iTunes Web page.
"A single guy trying to do a show like an ESPN show probably can't do it, but he can do a part of it," said Scott Fletcher, who hosts the "PodCheck Weekly Review," a podcast that draws about 750 listeners. "And he can do that one part better than ESPN."
