The “Rock and Roll Geek Show” broadcasts twice a week from San Francisco. But you won’t find its distinctive mix of good time rock n’ roll, beer and Macworld commentary anywhere on the radio.
The half-hour show, hosted by Michael Butler, is delivered directly to listeners’ iPods and other digital music players.
It’s among a growing number of podcasts, a new online outlet for amateur broadcasters to run their own pirate radio stations. No government approval required.
Butler’s shows have attracted enough of a following to support an eight-country European concert tour for his rock band, American Heartbreak.
“During the past four months of me doing this podcast my band has gotten more exposure than in the seven years we’ve been together,” Butler said, hinting that a record label deal may even be in the works. “A lot of people came to the shows in Europe just because they heard us on the podcast.”
It’s hard to imagine giant radio conglomerates such as Clear Channel Communications fretting over such harmless-sounding podcasts as “The Dawn and Drew Show.”
But technology can pounce on unsuspecting, entrenched businesses, and podcasting seems to hold the same disruptive potential as TiVo, giving everyone the power to listen to the radio shows they want whenever they want.
“The devices are listening for us, recording while you’re not there, filling up with programs that you like,” said Jim Griffin, chief executive of Cherry Lane Digital, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm specializing in new forms of music and entertainment delivery.
“As we move from this “channel we’ to “channel me,’ the intriguing question to marketers is: “How do I program for that?’ Podcasting is the answer.”
Podcasts take advantage of an online subscription format known as RSS – short for really simple syndication.
The software is designed to scour the Web for the news stories posted by traditional publications or an entry posted by a blogger. A separate piece of software pulls all the disparate feeds together in one place X Xon your computer.
“You don’t have to go hunting for news – the news finds you,” said Dave Winer, the inventor of RSS and creator of one of the earliest blogs, the Scripting News.
Podcasting works in the same way. Subscribe to specific Podcasts, and the software finds the latest feeds and transfers the audio files automatically to iTunes, Apple’s digital media jukebox.
When an iPod is plugged into your computer, it downloads the podcasts. The software also works with other music management programs and digital music players.
Podcasting sprang from a conversation four years ago between Winer and Adam Curry, a one-time MTV host turned Internet entrepreneur. The former VJ was looking for a way to distribute video over the Internet.
“My first reaction, like many other people’s first reactions, was forget it,” said Winer. “We tried video on the Web. It sucks. He said, “Maybe it doesn’t have to be so bad.”‘
Curry persisted, and Winer subsequently developed software to enclose audio files in RSS feeds, much like an e-mail attachment.
“We threw it out there, we evangelized it. It was like, “If you build it, they will come.’ But they didn’t come – for a while,” Winer said.
Two things happened to ignite the podcasting phenomenon.
First, there was the popularity of Apple Computer’s portable digital music players. With gigabytes of hard drive space to fill, iPods are voracious consumers of fresh audio content.
Second, Curry began podcasting his “Daily Source Code,” a freely distributed variety show calculated to fill the listening void.
The “Daily Source Code,” broadcast from the Netherlands, inspired imitators.
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
The earliest podcasters were people like Dave Slusher, a former high school DJ from Kansas who got his FCC broadcaster’s license before his driver’s license. He went from college radio to producing a national radio talk show, “Reality Break,” interviewing science fiction writers.
Slusher is a software programmer by day. But listening to Curry’s podcasts inspired him to return to his first love, radio.
He rummaged around a closet to retrieve his old audio gear and launched the “Evil Genius Chronicles,” an homage to the indefatigable spirit of his favorite childhood character, Wile E. Coyote.
His first musings on music and “geekery” attracted a mere dozen or so listeners – friends and others who read his Web logs. Now, the “Evil Genius Chronicles” is among the best known of the new medium.
“When people start quoting me, not things I had written but things I had spoken aloud, I was like “Wow,”‘ he said.
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
Many podcasts have the rambling, unfocused, “Look Ma, I’m a broadcaster” feel of college radio. Or, more appropriately, ham radio.
Podcasting’s gadget-heavy focus means it’s still mainly pursued by early adopters of technology.
Consider that one of podcasting’s top shows, “IT Conversations,” will devote an entire program to chatting with Google’s vice president of engineering about the future of search architecture.
Podcasts do include a handful of professionally produced shows, such as Boston public radio station WGBH’s “Morning Stories,” “The Al Franken Show” on Air America and programming from the BBC.
Fans of independent music will find podcasting an endless source of music discovery.
Take, for example, “The $250 million Radio Show,” created by Derrick Oien, a former executive at MP3.com, a company that distributed music from more than 250,000 bands over the Internet. The name, in case you were wondering, refers to the amount MP3.com paid Universal Music Group in a copyright infringement case.
Oien’s show focuses on overlooked musical genres such as progressive emo, electronica and punk/hardcore. His audience has grown to about 25,000 regular listeners since the show was first podcast Oct. 14.
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Although Oien would love to play the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, the major labels have yet to license their music to podcasters. So he’s focusing on the independent labels that gravitated to MP3.com for distribution.
“There’s thousands of great-sounding bands that are going to be signed by the labels in the next year or two. Focus on them,” he said.
That’s an enormous boon to emerging acts such as Manda and the Marbles, a power pop band out of Columbus, Ohio, working to build momentum for its forthcoming album, “Angels with Dirty Faces.”
Getting traditional radio airplay during waking hours is almost out of the question.
So the band’s label, Addison Records, began distributing the first single, “Ode to Rock,” to podcasts such as “Insomnia Radio” and “Up The Tree.” The independent podcasts generated a groundswell of interest, according to band members.
“We’ve gotten e-mails from people in Japan, all over Europe, saying we heard you guys on the podcast,” said drummer Mark Slak. “Ever since we started talking to podcasters, our Web site has tripled in hits.”
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
To listen to a podcast, you’ll need software that reads RSS 2.0 feeds with enclosed audio files.
The software is available at sites like www.iPodderX.com or www.iPodder.net. The software – some versions are free or available for a free trial period – automatically downloads audio files to your computer and moves the tracks to iTunes or another music management program for transfer to your iPod or other digital music player. All you do is subscribe to podcast feeds and your machine does the rest.
Of course, finding what feeds to listen to can be as frustrating as tuning a radio station in an unfamiliar city. Expect a good deal of trial and error.
Allen Weiner, research director with the Gartner market research firm, said podcasting remains largely a hobbyist phenomenon, attracting “anybody who’s ever had a microphone or worked at a college radio
AP-NY-02-09-05 0738EST
Comments are no longer available on this story