Podcastplayer.org news

Among the usual run of announcements of new podcasts, new “the one central place to find podcasts” websites, and rants about how podcasting will spell the death of radio, I found the following article from Matt Hartley:

Ctrl-Alt-Del :: SIRIUS/XM and Podcasting - a long overdue match made in heaven

I can’t work out whether this is a really good idea that I just don’t understand, or whether this guy just misses the point completely. He starts fairly rationally:

Let’s face it, most broadcast stations don’t offer much selection in the talk radio realm. With this in mind, I have decided to take the bull by the horns and make SIRIUS aware that we are serious about this thing called Podcasting.

Fair enough. But then he seems to drift off. I was expecting something about informing broadcasters that podcasting is an important phenomenon, and that they ought to “get with the program” and podcast their own shows to reach a wider audience. Instead he takes a backflip and calls for broadcasters to replace (some of?) their existing programming with material from podcasts.

Those of you that would argue that this is not possible with traditional broadcast media are forgetting something very important - satelite radio. Whether it be SIRIUS or XM, each of us has an opportunity to shake the broadcast world to its very core.
. . .
if I have anything to say about it, we will see Podcasts broadcasted in the mainstream one way or the other.

I have to ask, why?

Podcasts already have a distribution medium, through which they can reach listeners all round the world. Why do they need another? As far as I can tell from my reading (and listening to the “On the Media” podcast), Sirius and XM are two (supposedly competing) pay-to-listen radio networks. Why would a listener want to pay to hear podcasts that they can already (a) get for free, (b) get any time they want, and © listen any time they want?

It’s not even as if each listener would get their own personalised choice of podcasts, either. The nature of broadcast media is that everyone gets to listen to the same thing. Podcasting is fundamentally “narrowcasting” - the passionate speaking directly to the interested.

There’s a load of good stuff on the radio already, but I never get to hear it, because it’s never on when I want to listen. I’m honestly baffled why Matt thinks that distributing podcasts by broadcast radio offers any advantages.