Tag Archives: Podcasts

February 21, 2021 · 3:00 am

Your Cell Phone is a Radio

By definition, radio is, a: the wireless transmission and reception of electric impulses or signals by means of electromagnetic waves. b: the use of these waves for the wireless transmission of electric impulses into which sound is converted, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.

Your cell phone sends signals to (and receives them from) nearby cell towers (base stations) using Radio Frequency (RF) waves. This is a form of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum that falls between FM radio waves and microwaves.

My First FCC License

When I studied for and passed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) test to obtain my 3rd Class Radio-Telephone License, I initially wondered why it said “telephone” on it.

Telephones in 1968 were all wired devices, like in my parent’s house in which our family phone was connected by a copper wire and bolted to the kitchen wall.

When I began to study the history of radio, I learned that an early experimenter in radio broadcasting, Kentucky melon farmer Nathan Stubblefield, wanted to be able to talk to his wife while he was driving his automobile while away from their farmhouse. In those early days, no one had a clue what this new technology would become.

Radio’s Metamorphosis

The podcast “Local Marketing Trends” hosted by Corey Elliot and Gordon Borrell, recently featured an interview with the Radio Advertising Bureau’s (RAB) President/CEO Erica Farber in which she said the radio industry’s sales arm was going through a metamorphosis; today the RAB thinks more broadly, to include all things audio.

Gordon asked Erica if she meant podcasting and streaming audio like Spotify and Pandora, to which she said “Yes.” When might this happen, Gordon asked, to which she responded, “maybe today.”

Farber explained how she feels radio is ahead of the curve in not just delivering content, but in delivering services too. Radio is no longer just about selling thirty and sixty second spots but it’s a very different business now, with radio’s core product today being “delivering results.”

Audio Advertising Bureau

Might the Radio Advertising Bureau change its name to become the Audio Advertising Bureau?

I hope not. Here’s why I say that.

Radio suffers from traditional broadcaster thinking that it needs an FCC license, radio tower, antenna and transmitter which sends a signal out over the AM or FM radio bands. But if you ask a young person, what is radio, they will tell you about their favorite stream or podcast which  they listen to through their smartphone.

Radio is not a dated identifier, it’s very much in vogue in the 21st Century, but what imagine comes to mind when one says the word “RADIO” will differ depending upon a person’s age.

1940s Floor Cabinet Radio (what my parents listened to)
1970s Transistor Radio (the radio of my youth)
21st Century Smartphone used as a radio & a whole lot more (the “radio” I use today)

Apple Music Radio

You might have missed Apple’s August 2020 Press Release about how they were changing the name of their radio service from Beats 1 to Apple Music Radio. In spite of trying to invent a new name for their streaming music offerings, their users called it “RADIO.” And now, so does Apple.

Beats 1, has been Apple’s flagship global radio station since its launch in 2015. Five years later, it’s been renamed Apple Music 1. Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music, Beats and International Content, explained

“Apple Music Radio provides an unparalleled global platform for artists across all genres to talk about, create, and share music with their fans, and this is just the beginning. We will continue to invest in live radio and create opportunities for listeners around the world to connect with the music they love.”Beats

Now is NOT the time for AM/FM Radio broadcasters to abandon the sonic brand known as “RADIO.”

Adapt or Die

When people started streaming over the Internet and calling it “radio,” traditional broadcasters looked down their noses in much the same way that print journalists looked down their noses at the new media platforms like Buzzfeed and Vice Media invading their world.

Traditional media survivors will learn to accept and embrace the new platforms that disrupt the world as we knew it and are creating the world that will be.

An inability to adapt to new platforms is what causes both people and industries to fail.

AM, FM, internet streaming, smartphones, connected cars are all platforms. Radio, newspapers, magazines and the like, are all media products. Understanding this dichotomy is critical.

And so, the challenge for radio is not changing its name, but adapting its product to today’s platforms.

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December 6, 2020 · 3:00 am

Could 2021 Be the Year SiriusXM Adds FREE Channels?

Back in July of 2016, I wrote an article wondering what might happen if AM/FM radio broadcasters woke up one day to the headline “SiriusXM is Now Free.” What made me think about this happening, was I had just read how Angie’s List had announced they were pulling down their paywall and making their service free and available to everyone.

Pay to Play

Call it a subscription, a membership fee or a paywall, what happens when they are eliminated? In Angie’s List’s case, less than one percent of Americans were members at the $40/month fee that had been in place. Paying that fee let people see the reviews of members that they  experienced when doing business with certain businesses or services. But now, everyone could have free access to those same rather substantial reviews, while enjoying the website’s strong, trusted and valuable content.

Why did Angie’s List Tear Down Their Paywall?

Angie’s List is a publicly traded company. Their stock had been down seventy-five percent from the previous three years and management was under pressure to get the stock going back up. By tearing down their paywall, they would increase page views. When page views go up, revenue goes up.

SiriusXM Under New Leadership in 2021

On January 1, 2021, Jennifer Witz takes over from James Meyer as CEO of SiriusXM. Meyer has been leading the satcaster since May of 2004. During his tenure, SiriusXM has grown to having its service playing in 132 million cars, but with only 34.4 million paid subscribers.

Its stock price all-time high was back in February of 2000, over twenty years ago, when it hit $66.50 a share. This past year the stock has traded between $4.11 and $7.40, for an average price of $6.05 a share.

Do you see an Angie’s List type of problem?

Walking a Tightwire

Incoming CEO Witz knows she will be walking a tightwire by making part of SiriusXM free to all radios capable of receiving the satcaster’s signal. The challenge will be to monetize those non-members through ad-supported free channels without cannibalizing paid memberships. SiriusXM grew revenues 7% in 2019 to a record $6.2 billion.

AM/FM radio revenues are projected to fall 17% in 2020, largely due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, but quickly rebounding in 2021 and growing in the years beyond.

Audio Advertising Works

With the dynamic growth of smart speakers, fueled in the United States by Amazon which controls 70% of the home smart speaker market, new interest of advertising goods and services via audio only has increased dramatically.

This should be a boon to AM/FM radio advertising, except for one caveat, the way people consume audio today is vastly different than even ten years ago with eMarketer saying there are 204 million digital audio listeners in the United States today. In fact, listening to digital audio makes up two-thirds of all digital media consumption, second to only digital video viewing based on time spent on this activity.

Moreover, digital audio advertising has been growing at a double digit rate.

Competition for Your Ear

The competition to be in your ear has never been greater. Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music, YouTube, podcasts, and audio books are all looking to get a piece of your time and attention.

With this increased focus on digital audio by consumers, advertisers are following in lockstep.

SiriusXM

Which brings us back to where this article started, SiriusXM. The satcaster has long seen AM/FM radio as its main competition and that two-thirds of AM/FM radio’s revenue stream is due to dominance on car radios. It’s simply too tempting not to want to utilize the chip it’s paid to have installed in your vehicle’s dashboard and monetize it in a new way. Doing so would mean an increase in revenues for its shareholders and at the same time the ability to elevate the company’s stock price.

If Apple has taught the world anything, it is that you can’t be afraid to cannibalize yourself if you want to grow your company.  Also, you don’t always have to be first to the party, to come away a big winner. You simply need to provide a superior product.

SiriusXM also enjoys the advantage of knowing who’s listening to what. Here’s how the satcaster puts it:

Jul 6, 2020 — “TRACKING” YOUR ACTIVITIES ACROSS DEVICES AND APPS We receive Listener Usage Data automatically from Internet-enabled devices. If you have a Sirius XM account, we may match the Listener Usage Data we receive to the device or devices associated with your account and thereby with you or your household.”

It’s an obvious advantage over audience estimates provided by a third party ratings company when a digital audio service can tell an advertiser how many people actually were exposed to their advertisement.

For radio sellers in 2021, it’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

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March 1, 2020 · 3:00 am

Streaming & Podcasting

computers streaming & podcastingI’ve been thinking about these two forms of audio for some time now. With each new article published about streaming, we see how more and more people are listening to music in this way. The smart speaker has certainly contributed to the growth of music listening via streams, and the smart speaker growth is exploding.

I know with my own experience by getting my first smart speaker as a gift, to now owning three of them, how it’s totally changed how I listen to music.

And then there’s podcasting, a way for the spoken word to be communicated.

Radio versus Streaming & Podcasting

Radio for most of my life was a way to hear both music and the spoken word. It was curated and delivered in fresh and exciting ways by a variety of radio stations across the country.

Unfortunately, radio delivered programming on its timetable, not the listeners.

As VCRs came into the television world, I remember hearing, why isn’t there a device like that for radio? There actually was, I owned one, but it never really caught on like the video devices did.

The VCRs and DVRs changed how people consumed their television programs, and essentially did away with the concept of “Must See TV” turning it into “must record TV.”

Netflix

Then along comes Netflix, and the concept of On Demand TV viewing was born.

One might argue that Blockbuster started it with video rentals, but it still really didn’t impact American viewing habits like streaming video did.

Again, Netflix disrupted people’s viewing habits when it would release an entire season of a TV series all at once. Gone was the need to come back week-after-week to see a program. Now, a new type of TV consumption was created, the binge-watch.

Broadcast versus Streaming

What’s really changed in our consumption of TV and radio is our ability to control what we see and hear, and when we want to see and hear it. In other words, On Demand is the media consumption process of the 21st Century.

I stream 100% of my television viewing. I can watch a program live, or start the show from the beginning if I arrive late, or just view it whenever I want, at another time through On Demand viewing.

Streaming TV has trained us, and now the smart speaker is taking our new media consumption habit and making audio listening just as easy to consume in this manner.

Alexa is ready, willing and able to play any genre of music that I want to hear, on a moment’s notice. She has more song selections than my own personal CD library and it’s so much easier to ask Alexa to play a song for me than try and find the CD that a song is on, and then load it into my CD player.

Podcasts

Complete honesty here, I’m not a fan of podcasts. I don’t know why, I’m just not. The only one I ever listened to in its entirety was the first season of the podcast Serial, and that was mainly due to a long 13-hour car drive, and my ability to download all the episodes onto my iPod to play in my car.

However, I do know that younger folks are really getting into podcasts and this segment will only grow as the spoken word genre finds a way to promote its wares.

The Looming Audio Battle

What I do see on the horizon is radio being drawn and quartered by streaming audio for music, and podcast audio for the spoken word. Both types of audio programming are easily called up via smart speakers and available On Demand.

Curated programming, as has been the staple of broadcast radio, will be challenged to compete.

Professional Radio & Amateur Radio

Radio won’t die, it has a future, but I see it bifurcating in the following ways:

  • There will be professional broadcasters and amateur broadcasters.
  • I see the future of radio looking something like the difference between professional and amateur theater. For example, the difference between Broadway and community theater; where the former are professional paid actors, and the latter is made up of talented volunteer locals with an insatiable love of theater.
  • The advent of low power FM radio stations is the first toe-in-the-water that points in this direction for amateur radio personalities who volunteer their time and energy.
  • Some of these volunteers will come from the ranks of retired or “dislocated” professional radio personalities and some will be members of the community that always thought it would be fun to be on-the-air.
  • What seems to be disappearing are local radio stations in the middle, ones that used to be ad-supported by local businesses, who now find themselves displaced by big box stores and online shopping.
  • The newspaper industry is the canary in the coal shaft for ad-supported media. Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger points out that, “Technological change is destroying the daily newspapers in America. The revenue goes away and the expenses remain and they’re all dying.” However, Munger does feel that papers like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times will most likely survive.
  • Newspapers have been cutting staff like crazy but it’s done little to turn things around. Radio is following in print industry’s footsteps as “employee dislocations” are occurring at all the major broadcasting companies.

Does any of this make sense to you?

I’d love to hear what your thoughts are.

Please post your thoughts on comments section of this blog article, so that others may read them and hear different opinions.

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December 15, 2019 · 3:00 am

Why?

Why why whyIt’s not unusual for little boys and girls to ask the question “Why?” They ask it a lot.

Why? Because they want to learn, to know why things have to be that way.

But what happens to the person who is asked the why question?

They are forced to think about it, sometimes even reassess the answer they knew and wonder if it was really the right answer or merely a convention. In other words, is the reason simply because, it’s the way something has always been done?

It causes one to consider that maybe things didn’t really need to be done that way, and could be done differently.

What If?

While why questions open our minds to new thoughts and opportunities, “what if” questions are like a fork in the road. They can take us in new directions.

For example, “What if radio stations only aired a single commercial in a break?” Or, “What if all radio commercials were delivered live by the radio personality?”

Edison Research revealed at this year’s Radio Show, that people would change radio stations or stop listening all together due to basically one of three reasons: 1) forced change, 2) engagement and 3) commercials.

Forced change was defined by a loss of signal or a bad signal. Engagement was described as boredom, didn’t like the song, the personality or subject matter. And I think everyone understands the tune-out factor of commercials to radio listeners.

Commercials

Why do commercials have to be a listener tune out? What if commercials caused radio listeners to lean into their speakers and pay close attention?

My first personal experience with doing just that was when I listened to Paul Harvey News & Comment and he said, “Page Two.”

Paul Harvey did his sponsor’s commercials live. He did them with passion and enthusiasm. The result was people listened, and even more importantly, they bought the products and services he told them about.

Podcasts

I’ve noticed that podcasters usually have a single commercial in their program and is usually delivered by the host of the podcast. What if that’s the reason podcast commercials deliver such powerful results and more advertisers are considering using podcasts as part of their advertising program.

Same, but Different

In my radio management career, I had the opportunity to live and work in different parts of the country with some fabulous radio professionals. The radio business is an identical business everywhere in America, but back in the days before consolidation and the concept of “Best Practices,” radio people tended to innovate the creative process in completely different ways. It’s one of the reasons many, my age, loved to DX AM radio signals after sunset.

The Innovators

I believe some of the best innovators for setting the course for radio in 2020 are working for you right at this very moment. They aren’t necessarily the “A players” or even the most focused ones, but they are the ones that are asking “Why & What If” and are continually looking for new problems to solve.

If you create a culture within your radio station that encourages that kind of inquiry, a culture that continually asks “why” do we always do things this way and “what if” we did things differently, radio for the 21st Century will begin to be born.

If you don’t, your business is ripe for disruption by another media innovator.

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September 9, 2018 · 3:00 am

Watch the Media

John ShraderI was recently invited to be a guest on the radio show and podcast “Watch the Media with John Shrader.” The program airs on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus radio station and the podcast of the show can be heard on SoundCloud.

John had some interesting questions and I thought I’d share them, along with my answers in this week’s blog article.

What is the State of Terrestrial Radio?

If we look at the topline number of how many Americans listen to terrestrial radio today versus the last ten years or so, that number is remarkably stable. Unfortunately, what has changed are the TSL (Time Spent Listening) and PUR (Persons Using Radio) numbers. They’ve been in a steady decline since 2007. That’s 11-years of erosion.

What’s not pretty is the accompanying loss of revenue that comes with losing 30% of your TSL.

Radio revenues today are characterized with such phrases as “flat is the new up.”

In 2017, U.S. commercial radio’s over-the-air income declined 2% year-over-year, according to BIA Advisory Services’ Q1 2018 “Investing in Radio Market Report.”

In should be noted that, the same report showed that radio stations reported a 9.7% increase in online revenues over the same period.

Radio Revenue Recent History

During the 1990s, ratings and ad revenue rose rapidly. According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, industry revenues grew from around $11 Billion per year to nearly $20 Billion between 1994 and 2000. After 1996, revenues grew by double digit percentages every year until 2001.dollar sign

PBS reported that “The collapse of advertising budgets that came in 2001 after 9/11 hit radio hard, cutting revenues by 8-percent that year to $18.4 Billion.”

In February 2005, then Viacom (today CBS) President Leslie Moonves told the L.A. Times this his top priority was returning the business to a “growth path.” Moonves recently sold off all of CBS radio stations to Entercom.

2017 Radio Revenues

In 2017, radio revenues ended at $13.87 Billion; not exactly a “growth path.”

BIA SVP and Chief Economist Mark Fratrik summarized the situation for American radio this way:

“Revenues are growing for broadcasters online but not over-the-air. We do not expect over-the-air advertising revenue of U.S. radio stations to grow much this year or in the near future. There is an unprecedented number of new audio entertainment and information sources and new advertising platforms competing with radio, including many that are unregulated. It’s an aggressive environment that competes for audiences with local radio.”

Who are Radio’s Listeners and Where do They Listen?

In general, today’s radio listeners are on the backside of Everett Rogers “Diffusion of Innovation Curve.” diff-of-innovationThey are part of the Late Majority and Laggards.

car radio.jpgThe primary way people access radio today is in their car. But by 2020, it is estimated that 75% of the cars sold will be connected to digital services.

Today’s heaviest radio listeners are reported to be Black or Hispanic.

Radio’s best listeners tend to be employed full-time versus unemployed. That’s great news for radio sales people to share.

What’s alarming is the fact that recent research showed that 29% of all American households don’t have a single AM or FM radio in them and even more alarming, 18-34 year old households are now at the tipping point of radio ownership. 50% of those household don’t have a single AM or FM radio in them. That probably explains how monthly online audio listening reportedly increased from 5% in 2000 to 64% in 2018.

Edison Research has more HERE

What’s the Future for Podcasting?

Podcasting is still growing. About 26% of people over the age of 12 have listened to any podcast in the past 30-days. However, 36% of Americans still don’t have a clue as to what podcasting even is. So, it would appear there’s a lot of growth potential.

Great podcasts, like great radio personalities, tell great stories.

Something to watch is Amazon. It laid off its entire original podcast staff in August.

What’s the Impact of Smart Speakers on Radio?

Tom Webster at Edison Research says “smart speaker adoption is the fastest tech adoption we’ve ever tracked in the Infinite Dial research. It went from 7% to 18% in a year.” echo

Smart speaker growth isn’t slowing and these new devices are replacing radios in the home.

I got my first Amazon Echo for Christmas 2017. By the end of Q1 2018, I owned three of them. 100% of my in-home radio listening now occurs via a smart speaker.

These things are addictive.

65% of people who own a smart speaker say they wouldn’t give them up.

What’s Radio’s Future?

People my age grew up with radio. Our parents controlled our home’s only television back in the 60s/70s. Radio was a way we could escape and connect with people our own age and the music of our generation.

Much as we created radio for our generation of listeners, today’s future broadcasters will need to mold it for their generation.

We are living in the days of a communications revolution. Not since the invention of the printing press and movable type has the world of communication been so rocked by change. Revolutions are messy, the future is not always clear, major disruption is par for the course.

New ways of communicating are being created.

Radio, as we knew it, is not coming back.

ON DEMAND

We now live in an ON DEMAND world. It has changed the way we use all forms of mass media. People going forward will want what they want, when they want it.on-demand-cpe

Netflix created the new phenomena of binge-watching TV shows. I do that now too. I also binge-listened to the podcast SERIAL on a long car drive after that weekly podcast had completed season one.

What Won’t Change?

What we know is that people will always be drawn to great story telling. Our brains are wired for stories. We also know that people will want to be connected to others like themselves.

Dan Mason puts it this way, radio is all about community and companionship.

I don’t see that changing, do you?

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September 2, 2018 · 3:00 am

What a Radio Looks Like in the 21st Century

first iPhone introducedIt was only 11-years ago that Steve Jobs took the stage and held in his hand the future. It was an iPhone.

Many people were skeptical that this device could compete with the very popular Blackberry. I think I may have been one of them, as I was a Blackberry owner/user until 2012.

I quickly realized that I knew how to operate an iPhone, after buying an iPad in the fall of 2011.  All Apple devices share a core eco-operating system that makes learning them fast and easy. My first iPhone was the 4S. The “S” stood for Siri and I quickly learned to use Siri to type all of my text and emails via dictation. In 2017, I upgraded to an iPhone 7.

OK, so I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. But in just a decade, have you ever stopped to think about the impact that the smartphone has had on our lives and the technology we use?

RADIO

In America today, 29% of households don’t have a single working AM or FM radio. But it gets worse. The percentage of households without a single working AM or FM radio grows to 50% for the 18-34-year-old age group.

Edison Research recently reported that even 63% of heavy radio listeners now consume their audio online. 82% of those listeners own a smartphone and the most commonly downloaded App is Pandora (40%).

For many, a radio in the 21st Century looks like a smartphone.

SMARTPHONES

Crosley AM FM Radio

Often it appears like radio people think they are the only ones who are not affected by the innovations of technology. Such as, no matter what comes along, AM/FM radio will always be there. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is like sticking your head in the sand.

Let’s think about how smart phones have replaced other “must have” technologies:

  • My Nikon camera no longer goes on vacation with me, it has been replaced by the pictures I take on my iPhone
  • Same for videos using my very expensive camcorders
  • My iPod is now my iPhone
  • My newspaper is my iPhone
  • My calculator is my iPhone
  • My eBook reader is my iPhone (or iPad)
  • My pocket voice recorder is now my iPhone
  • My GPS when on foot is my iPhone, though I still prefer my Garmin SmartDrive 61 in the car
  • My flashlight is now my iPhone
  • My iPhone is my compass, barcode scanner, and portable video player
  • My iPhone is the way I access Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn away from home
  • My iPhone is the way I get both my local weather forecast as well as access weather radar. Weather alerts come in immediately to my iPhone replacing the need for my weather radio.
  • I’ve been a cellphone only household since 2000
  • My smartphone is my household answering machine
  • My smartphone is my alarm clock
  • I no longer wear a wrist watch, as my iPhone is my watch
  • I use my iPhone as a timer when I’m cooking
  • I have my digital library on my iPhone
  • My work and personal calendars are all on my iPhone
  • I keep notes and other records on my iPhone
  • Since I take all my pictures with my iPhone these days, my photo album is also my smartphone. (Note: I have 2-TerraBytes of iCloud storage to back up everything)
  • My entire “rolodex” (contact list) is now on my iPhone (I started with a Day-Timer and went digital in 1989 with a Casio Boss. Then moved to a Palm Pilot. Then to the iPhone.)
  • I check my email when not at home on my iPhone
  • I surf the internet frequently on my iPhone
  • When I call the kids & grandkids, it’s using Facetime on my iPhone
  • My credit cards, plane tickets, show tickets are now all in my Apple Wallet on my iPhone
  • I can even use my iPhone to run my Apple TV as a remote control

SMARTPHONE ADDICTION

A new research study by Pew finds that 54% of U.S. teenagers, age 13 to 17, worry they may be spending too much time on their phones. While they also say they are trying to reduce their smartphone and social media time spent, 56% of teenagers find that doing so makes them feel anxious, lonely, or upset.Group Of Children Sitting In Mall Using Mobile Phones

And it’s no better for parents (and may I add, grandparents). Pew’s survey tells us that we are struggling with the same impulses over the time we spend on our phones and social media, sometimes with even worse results than teenagers.

Adults lose focus on their work and students lose focus in the classroom, by the constant need to check their smartphone.

SMART SPEAKER

echoMost research today indicates that since the introduction of the smart speaker, the device that’s getting a little less use is the smartphone. I would concur that is the case in my home as well. Our 3 Amazon Echoes are the way we access at home radio listening, get flash briefs, find out the time and latest weather forecast.

At home, 100% of our radio listening is streamed through a smart speaker.

Speaking of Voice Command devices, my Garmin GPS SmartDrive 61 is now programmed by my voice and I can add via points while driving simply by telling my Garmin where I want to go next. It’s the best improvement in automobile navigation since the GPS itself.

ON DEMAND

on-demand-cpeWhat the smart speaker and the smartphone have in common, are both devices give the user what they want, when they want it. On Demand is the real game changer of the 21st Century communications world.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV etc. are delivering on demand television. The smartphone and smart speakers are doing that same thing for podcasts, radio, news, weather and everything else.

Edison Research noted, in their recent research, that the hardware challenge in the home is significant. Getting analog radio back into the home (and I would add, in the very near future, the car) seems unlikely

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May 15, 2016 · 4:00 am

Podcasts & Homework

33On the surface these two things appear to have nothing in common. Right? But stay with me as I explain. I follow Duke Professor, celebrated author and student of human nature Dan Ariely. Dan writes a regular column for the Wall Street Journal in which he answers people’s questions. A recent question was “Any tips for encouraging kids to view their homework as play?”

Being that my second career is teaching at a university, subjects dealing with learning catch my eye, so I read what Dan had to say about this.

Can Homework Be Viewed As Play?

Two words: Not really.

However Dan goes on to explain why this is. While you can get kids to maybe enjoy homework more or to hate doing homework less, it is still work. Play is something else entirely.

So what does this have to do with Podcasts?

Hold on, I’m getting to that. Dan goes on to tell the story of how in a part of the world that has little water; deep wells need to be dug to find water. Pumping water out of these deep wells is a lot of work. A person noticing how children at a playground near the well loved to push a merry-go-round around for hours on end while at play had an idea. What if the children’s merry-go-round were connected to a pump that would draw water out of the well? Are you with me so far?  Well, that’s what they did.

A Not So Bright Idea

The result of this new “PlayPump” was underwhelming. And here’s the key point of the story. Dan says that “when you take a play activity and force children to do it, you change the activity from play to work, and the fun goes away.”

Podcasts = Work

In my honest opinion, Podcasts take work. You have to remember they are there. You have to download them onto your device. You have to schedule a time you’re going to listen to them. You have the ability to fast-forward or repeat them – which I’m sure you would say is their benefit – and that means you have control over them. You have a role to play. You have to work. So if Podcasts are to be a threat to over-the-air radio, listening to them is going to have to get a whole lot easier.

Don’t Discount Curation

Over-the-air radio is easy, just an on/off button, volume control, and your favorite stations ready to listen to at the push of a button. Someone else does all the work. They pick out the songs, they tell you the weather, they give you the time and traffic conditions, they entertain you, and they alert you to anything important happening in your world you should know about. All you have to do is play.

Who wants to do homework anyway?

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February 8, 2015 · 8:45 am

Hooked on a Podcast

Did you know you don’t need an iPod to listen to a Podcast? OK, if you’re reading this, you probably did know. I know my students know, because they are already listening to Podcasts on all kinds of devices that connect to the Internet.

I never really thought of hearing the end of an NPR story that I couldn’t complete when I was listening to it being broadcast over-the-air, on the NPR website, as a Podcast. It was just a way I could finish listening to something that had captured my attention. But that is a Podcast too.

To me, Podcasts were more along the lines of content developed to be delivered only via the Internet that could be

Then I heard the buzz about Serial. It premiered in October 2014 and season one was made up of twelve episodes. Serial is a spin-off of the public radio program This American Life.

By the time I joined the “party” of fans hooked on this Podcast it had ended. All twelve episodes had been created and streamed. The last episode had just been posted before I was getting ready to leave for my annual Christmas vacation back in my hometown in New England. The drive from Kentucky to my hometown is a 15-hour, two day journey.

My plan was to download the entire first season of Serial and listen to it on my drive. I actually own an iPod Classic 80GB so it seemed appropriate to go on iTunes and download season one into this device for my drive. I also knew that I would be able to complete the entire first season before I arrived home for Christmas. What was season one about? I actually knew very little about it other than it was not fiction, but a true story about a homicide and a young man sitting in jail as a result. I had also heard that it gave the listener a behind the scenes look at how journalists work when covering a story. Not “parachute journalism” that is typically what we see on the national TV evening newscasts, but real investigative, shoe-leather journalism. I was as excited to get on the road to see my friends and family for Christmas as I was to plug in my iPod and begin listening to the first episode of Serial.

Full disclosure, I did have a fleeting thought that I might not be engaged by Serial and a major portion of my audio accompaniment for my long drive might be toast. That didn’t happen. Actually, I experienced a totally different problem, that being getting out my car to fill-up with gas or stopping for a necessary restroom break and having to stop the playback of Serial while I was out of my car. Yes, it’s that engaging!

Sarah Koenig hosts Serial and she’s a fabulous storyteller. What this Podcast does is cover one true story, one episode per week, and no one, including the Serial Team knows where it will end until they get there. Because of this, listeners to the Podcast that might have intimate information about the story contact Sarah and her team with leads and information for them to pursue. Had I been listening in “real time” as each new week’s episode was posted I would have been able to contribute had I had such knowledge about this story myself. (I didn’t) However, because I had the entire season one loaded onto my iPod, I had a similar problem to the year one of my son’s gave me season one of the TV show 24. Knowing I had the next episode at the ready meant I got very little done once I began watching that DVD. The good news is when it comes to audio content; you can do other things while listening, such as driving 15-hours back home for Christmas.

I’m not going to reveal details of the story of season one in this post, I think you will enjoy it more the less you know going in. I will tell you that I sent in my donation to keep this Podcast going. Sarah only mentions this once during the twelve episodes, but it immediately resonated with me and I made a mental note to send in my contribution when I got back to “my old Kentucky home.”

So what did I learn other than a company called Mail Chimp was the major sponsor after listening to the Serial Podcast? That Podcasts are a serious challenge to over-the-air broadcast, they’re easy to use and addictive.

Podcasters are also not afraid to dismiss folks who may not like what the Podcaster is doing. Maybe that’s because the Internet opens up the entire planet to them and when you consider what a niche program can attract when the potential pool of listeners is in the billions, it’s OK if not everyone’s a fan.

UPDATE: The Maryland Court of Special Appeals on Friday, February 6, 2015 agreed to hear his case after two unsuccessful attempts to appeal his conviction over the past 12 years.

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