Podcasting - Radio Reinvented

The commercial music business is getting it again, this time from the podcasters. Podcasts have only been around for a few years yet millions of people have heard one. Basically podcasters create a thirty-minute to one-hour internet radio program that can be downloaded and listened to at the listener's leisure. A constant internet connection is not necessary. A podcast can be listened to directly from ones computer or from his or hers iPod. Podcasters are looking for podsafe music, music that can be broadcast without having to pay a royalty. One would assume that both the paperwork and the financial obligations of playing music that is not royalty free is a hindrance. Regardless, podcasters are not looking for typical commercial music. They are looking for new music, music that their listeners have not heard before. Let's face it; if the listener wanted to hear platinum selling hits, they would prefer FM radio. Podcasts are a blessing to independent artists like myself.

Unlike commercial radio, there is no real money trading hands. This means that podcasters are free to play what they like (as long as it is podsafe). If you are older than me, you are saying to yourself; "That is what commercial radio was doing half a century ago, DJs played what they believed in." But those days are gone for commercial radio, the decisions about what is played is made behind closed doors after the money is counted.

Podcasts are fun, like old time radio. You get to hear music you never heard before in combinations FM radio could never do (for example the podcast Eclectic Mix recently featured me along with "American Baroque" performing a Mozart Oboe quartet). Listeners are growing and that is trouble for the record industry. Music buyers are becoming more and more likely to listen to a podcast, go to the artist's site and buy some music, cutting out the record industry, CD retailers and distributors in the process. FM's crowd is shrinking and with it CD sales. Independent labels like magnatune have been offering their music to podcasters for a long time and I have begun to notice some mainstream record labels jumping in on the action by offering their catalog royalty free to podcasters, fair I guess. God bless podcasters and independent music for making things fun and interesting again.

Podcasts I like:

• The Roadhouse
• Reaching for Lucidity
• Eclectic Mix
• Insomnia Radio
• Dark Compass
• Great American Music Hour
• Murphy's Saloon

Article I've Written:

• Podcasts and Internet Radio