Podcasting

History of podcasting

Podcasting began to catch hold in late 2004, though the ability to distribute audio and video files easily has been around since before the dawn of the Internet.

Before the advent of the World Wide Web, in the 1980s, RCS (Radio Computing Services), provided music and talk-related software to radio stations in a digital format. Before online music digital distribution, the midi format as well as the Mbone, Multicast Network was used to distribute audio and video files. The MBone was a multicast network over the Internet used primarily by educational and research institutes, but there were audio talk programs.

Many other jukeboxes and websites in the mid 1990s provided a system for sorting and selecting music or audio files, talk, segue announcements of different digital formats. There were a few websites that provided audio subscription services.

The development of downloaded music did not reach a critical mass until the launch of Napster, another system of aggregating music, but without the subscription services provided by podcasting or video blogging aggregation client or system software. Independent of the development of podcasting via RSS, a portable player and music download system had been developed at Compaq Research as early as 1999 or 2000. Called PocketDJ, it would have been launched as a service for the Personal Jukebox or a successor, the first hard-disk based MP3-player.

A fully conceived precursor to podcasting came from another early MP3 player manufacturer. To supply content for its players the I2Go company, makers of the eGo player, introduced a digital news service called MyAudio2Go.com that created daily audio news feeds users could download to the eGo or any other MP3 player. The eGo's file transfer application could be programmed to pull down specific feeds to a user's PC every evening.

There were dozens of focused daily feeds covering national news, business news, entertainment news, even a recap of the previous day's TV shows. The service lasted over a year, but succumbed when the I2Go company ran out of capital during the dotcom crash and folded.

In 2001, Applian Technologies of San Francisco, CA introduced Replay Radio, a TiVo-like recorder for Internet Radio Shows. Besides scheduling and recording audio, one of the features was a Direct Download link, which would scan a radio publishers site for new files and copy them directly to a PC's hard disk. The first radio show to publish in this format was WebTalkGuys World Radio Show (WebTalk Radio), produced by Rob and Dana Greenlee.

As is often the case with new technologies, pornography has become a part of the scene, producing what is sometimes called podnography. Other approaches include enlisting a class full of MBA students to research podcasting and compare possible business models, and venture capital flowing to influential content providers.

Podcasting has been given a major push by conventional media and can be read about further in podcasting by traditional broadcasters.

Podcasting has also been picked up by some print media, e.g. newspapers, who supply their readers with spoken versions of their content.

One of the first examples of a print publication to produce an audio podcast to supplement their printed content was the international scientific journal Nature. The Nature Podcast was set up in October 2005 by Cambridge University's award-winning "Naked Scientist", Chris Smith, who produces and presents the weekly show.

Although firm business models have yet to be established, podcasting represents a chance to bring additional revenue to a newspaper through advertising, subscription fees and licensing.

While podcasting's innovators took advantage of the sound-file synchronization feature of Apple Inc.'s iPod and iTunes software -- and included "pod" in the name -- the technology was always compatible with other players and programs. Apple was not actively involved until mid-2005, when it joined the market on three fronts: as a source of "podcatcher" software, as publisher of a podcast directory, and as provider of tutorials on how to create podcasts with Apple products GarageBand and QuickTime Pro. Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated creating a podcast during his January 10, 2006 keynote address to the Macworld Conference & Expo using new "podcast studio" features in GarageBand 3.

When it added a podcast-subscription feature to its June 28, 2005, release of iTunes 4.9, Apple also launched a directory of podcasts at the iTunes Music Store, starting with 3,000 entries. Apple's software enabled AAC encoded podcasts to use chapters, bookmarks, external links, and synchronized images displayed on iPod screens or in the iTunes artwork viewer. Two days after release of the program, Apple reported one million podcast subscriptions.

Some podcasters found that exposure to iTunes' huge number of downloaders threatened to make great demands on their bandwidth and related expenses. Possible solutions were proposed, including the addition of a content delivery system, such as Liberated Syndication; Podcast Servers; Akamai; a peer-to-peer solution, BitTorrent; or use of free hosting services, such as those offered by Ourmedia, BlipMedia and the Internet Archive.

Since September 2005, a number of services began featuring video-based podcasting including Apple, via its iTunes Music Store, Participatory Culture Foundation and Loomia. Known by some as a vodcast, or vidcast, the services handle both audio and video feeds.

Since the release of Apple's 5th Generation iPod in October 2005, which incorporated playing video files, Video podcasting has become a major selling point for Apple.

To the top

Podcasting by traditional broadcasters

Podcasting by traditional broadcasters started around the third quarter of 2004 when radio stations began to investigate the suitability of podcasting for delivering their programming. The first podcasts were commonly news and interview shows that were free of the complications of music licensing.

The first pioneers were mainly English language public radio producers, such as National Public Radio and Public Radio International both US-based, as well as other public media players such as the BBC and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, followed within months by commercial radio, and by broadcasters in other countries and other languages. In the US, individual television stations also began audio-only podcasts of news programs. Network programming was added later, including audio feeds related to television dramatic series.

The technology behind podcasting became available in January 2001, and the word was coined in early 2004, when only a few websites used the format as an outgrowth of weblog syndication feeds. In 2004 and 2005, trial years for the format, many traditional broadcasters offered only a selection of programming as a way to gauge demand for the new delivery method. As of December 2005, few traditional broadcasters were yet to adopt podcasting for all of their content.

The ABC's Radio National and Triple J Networks, and SBS SBS are making programmes available. In May 2005 Sydney station 2MBS became the first Australian community broadcaster to make content available in the format when its Ultima Thule weekly ambient music programme was made available as a podcast. Melbourne community broadcaster 3RRR 3RRR has since begun podcasting as well. Many dmg Radio Australia and Austereo radio stations have embraced the podcasting concept as well. 104.1 Territory FM is a community station in Darwin that podcasts a variety of segments from its talk shows.

April 2005: The commercial radio station Nostalgie has been the first one who podcasts some of their programs (more than 10 feeds), including their news bulletin and "400 secondes" political interviews. The VRT has started experiments and offers four programs via podcasting. The French-speaking public radios belonging to the RTBF started a full-scale podcasting offer on April 22, 2006. Broadcasting started in the summer of 2005 on the youth-oriented Pure FM radio.

CBC Radio began experimenting with three podcasts (CBC Podcasts). Since then, the concept was considerably expanded to cover many of the corporation's radio programing, including ones covering each of the province's regional programming.

In the summer of 2005, when the CBC locked out more than 5000 of its regular on-air and technical staff, they responded by creating their own unofficial podcast of original programming, CBC Unplugged, which also appeared on some campus and community radio stations. That podcast competed with limited on-air CBC programming, broadcast by a skeleton crew of managers—which, unlike the staff podcast, consisted mostly of repeats and rebroadcasts from the BBC and other networks, with a minimum of new material.

Radio Zero started podcasting in June 2005, becoming the first radio station in Chile that provided this kind of digital services. As from September 2005, Radio Duna started its podcasts; nowadays, five of its programs are available.

Danmarks Radio, the national broadcaster has started podcasting, find the posts here.

In Germany, Deutsche Welle was the first main broadcaster that started to publish audiovisual content via podcast in 2004. Beside that, there is a 24h livestream of the entire TV-program.

Repubblica Radio, a radio founded by Repubblica (Italy's second most important newspaper), is available either as a stream or as a podcast.

On October 31, 2007 Studio Universal, a television channel of the Universal Studios Networks, broadcasts podcast series The Sleep of Reason, produced by Giovanni Pedde, before it is officially launched as a podcast.

The national broadcaster NRK podcasts many of their programs . All are stripped for music for rights compliance, except for a program featuring unsigned Norwegian bands under the label Untouched Music.

The public radio Polskie Radio Szczecin has started publishing podcast of computer magazine Trącić myszką on 17 August 2005.

Private radio station Cadena Ser is podcasting many programs.

The public radio operator Sveriges Radio has started to podcast programs.

The BBC began a podcast trial in October 2004 with BBC Radio Five Live's Fighting Talk, extending it in January 2005 to BBC Radio 4's In Our Time and in April 2005 to several more programmes from 1Xtra, BBC World Service, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, Radio Northampton, 6 Music and BBC 7, Radio Brighton and programs available exclusively on podcast like the Ouch! Podcast.

Virgin Radio (now Absolute Radio launched a download and podcasting trial in 2005, claiming it was the first station to produce daily podcasts. They make various programmes available via podcast, all of which are available within iTunes.

London's LBC posts daily highlight podcasts of the Nick Ferrari breakfast show, the Steve Allen early breakfast show, the Iain Lee Drivetime Show (no longer being produced) and the Anna Raeburn lunchtime show. In January 2006, LBC became the first radio station in the world to introduce a premium service where subscribers pay for access to extra podcast channels. This included full length shows, extra premium-only shows, and an online Podcast Player, similar to the BBC's Listen Again radio player.

On September 15, 2004, Rob and Dana Greenlee began podcasting their nationally syndicated show, Web Talk Radio, which was already carried by 11 radio stations as well being distributed by webcast and download. Web Talk Radio had been offering mp3 downloads from its website for many earlier years, but was the first traditional terrestrial broadcast radio show in the world to start podcasting its whole on-air program. On October 4, 2004, Leo Laporte began re-broadcasting his KFI Los Angeles radio show as a podcast feed. WGBH in Boston began podcasting Tony Kahn's "Morning Stories" on October 7, 2004.

KOMO News in Seattle launched a station feed on October 8, 2004 (announcement).

National and local public radio programs were early adopters of podcasting, in part because their talk radio formats did not have the complications of music licensing. Three well known public radio stations (Boston's WGBH, New York's WNYC, and Los Angeles' KCRW) developed podcasts of their syndicated and local programs, including WNYC's On the Media. NPR and PRI also were among the first to enter into the arena with Science Friday (part of NPR's Talk of the Nation radio program) and PRI's Technology Podcast from PRI's The World (radio program), respectively. A podcast of the "Off The Hook" program, affiliated with 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, was podcast by New York City's WBAI starting in December, 2004.

CNN Radio is now podcasting a variety of programmes covering news and business updates along with special programming featuring in-depth coverage on a variety of topics and current events.

Many American college radio stations were early podcasters as well, such as Lafayette College's WJRH.

Television network interest included the American Broadcasting Company's ABC News Nightline program. By the end of 2005, the network offered more than 50 podcasts of audio from news and entertainment programs, including "Exclusiva" programs in Spanish.

Other traditional radio stations and programs moving to podcasting are WFMU and Inside Mac Radio.

In July 2006, Pittsburgh talk show hosts such as Ron Morris of The American Entrepreneur began simulcasting shows and taking calls via the new TalkShoe Internet podcasting service. In November 2006, Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur began hosting their Net@Nite podcast on TalkShoe.

As of 2006, American shock jocks Lex and Terry began offering their program in podcast form immediately following the initial broadcast.

To the top

Uses of podcasting

Podcasts enable students and teachers to share information with anyone anytime. If a student is absent, he or she can download the podcast of the recorded lesson. Teachers may also create podcasts to be used as a preparation tool for students. This would be pedagogically equivalent to having students read a text before a lesson. It can be a tool for teachers or administrators to communicate curriculum, assignments and other information with parents and the community. Teachers can record book talks, vocabulary or foreign language lessons, international pen pal letters (podcast pals!), music performance, interviews, debates. Podcasting can be a publishing tool for student oral presentations. Video podcasts can be used in all these ways as well.

To the top