Z100 is Podcasting, More From the Top
Podcasting is definitely taking hold of the world in ways that far exceed its humble beginnings. In the last 9 months or so we've seen it put to use by both the Main Stream Media (MSM) all the way down to the grassroots, Citizen's Media (CM) (or maybe it was the other way around).
In any event, today we see another brick laid in the long road to social viability: NYC's Top 40 station, Z100, starts to release its own content. For anyone that's lived in the Tri-State area, you've unlikely heard it at some point in your life. As a native, I grew up with leagues of others that had few choices BUT Z100 during our formative years.
What gets me the most excited, however, is just how many people this can reach in one shot. I remember last month driving out to Boston for some meetings. All of my iRivers were emptied and I didn't have my cassette adaptor handy to wire my laptop to the car, so I had to tune in to Z100. I got as far as Hartford if memory serves me right. Maybe we "don't need no stinking transmitters" but they're pretty damned cool if you ask me.
With any luck, we can expect the level of awareness to rise tremendously in the already iPod-laden NYC. Or is this a sign of the coming of the end. More sizzle than steak? Audio Graphics has a great insight into this:
Not only is radio following the internet trend, but it's repeating itself with podcasting. Podcasting is only a modern day version of an old station promotion: playing an entire album then urging listeners to have their cassette recorders ready "tonight at eight."
When all this washes out, I think we'll find far fewer people scheduling radio programs for automatic download than would record an album being tracked straight through.
Podcasting brings radio into today, while allowing it to keep one foot in yesterday. Remove the Rush Limbaughs and a few other syndicated programs, and you end up with a selection that's not interesting when heard in the past tense. Think about it, in July Infinity starts to podcast news programs with traffic reports in them. I can only imagine the demand to listen to yesterday's traffic tie-ups.
Very valid points. I think what's missing though, is the celebrity factor that many metro-area stations also hold. Sure, hearing yesterday's traffic is quite useless, but for those Britney fans out there, hearing her half hour interview is golden.
Once again, the truth is somewhere in the middle.