AprilEdit

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What lies ahead (with a question mark)

Someone recently asked me if podcasting was the future of radio. This kind of question comes up every so
often these days. How do you answer it?

I cautioned that any enthusiasm that I showed should not be misconstrued for expertise. I’ve said all along
that the people who really know the most about podcasting are you folks out there who sit down and get in
front of the mics. I knew that I wasn’t going to get off that easy this time so I tried to give a thoughtful
reply. The extra time probably allowed me to duck the meaty part of the question.

My response was that I believe that podcasting will have an important role in communication; that the role
is still being defined and the bounds are being stretched everyday. I don’t know that it will replace radio
any more than radio replaced reading or the Internet replaced the telephone. The variety of applications for
podcasting continues to amaze but historical cases of one medium replacing another seem to be rare.
Cassettes replaced 8-tracks and cds took the lead but they will likely be overtaken by mp3 players, but
these are devices. The medium hasn’t changed, only the way we interact with it.

I don’t know that it will be very different with radio. There are some things - like news and sporting events
- that we’ll probably always want to hear live. (Not the weather, am I the only person who notices that the
barometric pressure is always falling?)

The proliferation of iPods and the ease of producing podcasts has changed the landscape for distributing
stored spoken (and video) content. What happens as a result of the shift there is probably going to be
much more interesting than what happens in radio.

I hope I gave a good answer; I’d love to hear what you think.

TimR

Tim Rossi,
Editor
editor at norman press.com

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