The devotees and the curious wasted little time in taking to their iTunes consoles and signing up for a variety of podcasts.
Could we be seeing the death of overconsolidated, overcommercialized, broadcast radio?
Probably not yet. Podcasting offers a tremendous variety of talk and viewpoints, but licensed music still belongs to the airwaves and not the white earphones. Yet.
There’s little doubt the medium has its appeal. Apple has announced its iTunes Music Store has more than one million subscriptions for the 3,000 podcasts it has made freely available there.
“With the release of iTunes 4.9, listeners are voting with their ears,” said Adam Curry, co-founder of the PodShow Podcast Network. “Subscriptions have dramatically increased across our entire PodShow Podcast Network, and I predict over the coming months that iTunes will introduce tens of millions of new listeners to the world of Podcasting.”
“iTunes has done what possibly no one else could have accomplished, propelled Podcasting into the mainstream,” said Will Lewis, management consultant for KCRW. “Our servers have been swamped with a stratospheric increase in traffic.”
Advertisers will be sure to take notice of the mainstreaming of podcasting, if for no other reason than content creators will point it out to them. “Gourmet coffee was around for a long time, but it took Starbucks to put it on the map. Apple is like the Starbucks of Podcasting and advertisers will take (podcasters) more seriously now,” said August Trometer, developer of iPodderX.
Podcasting has reached a point of popularity where fans of programs will pay for some offerings. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Indianapolis-based morning jokesters The Bob and Tom Show can command annual fees in exchange for access to their daily podcasts.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
