Talking Voices Ireland

(Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union reports via media network)

ABC-Australia’s digital downloads have hit new heights with the number of downloaded ABC vodcasts and podcasts soaring to five million in the month of July. ABC vodcasts jumped from an average of 769,000 monthly downloads in the first half of the year to over 1.4 million downloads in July. Vodcasts of programme episodes or programme segments are now available for 14 ABC TV shows.

The total number of ABC podcasts increased by over one million, from a monthly average of two million from January to June, to over 3.5 million downloads in July. Radio Australia programmes made up 37 percent of all podcast downloads, followed by Radio National.

Radio Australia downloads skyrocketed from 302,000 (January to June monthly average) to 1.3 million in July, with podcasts from “English for Tourism” proving most popular for overseas audiences.

For radio to succeed in a digital world, its a no brain’er that ‘radio must go’ digital, signs from the UK are that this is happening, while the 5  Irish national radio channels are now on digital satellite on the astra2d footprint and DAB is on trial on the east coast and RTE completed DRM trials on LW this week. What is also visible is that podcasting can hold its own and also grow with minutes listened up and the content on offer increasing and out matching traditional radio. What is a challenge is how to measure this digital soup. We know they listen, but when or where we can’t be sure, as once you go online your listeners can be anywhere, and with Internet Radio units going sub €100 (£65) for the first time in Ireland this week the future is radio’s if it can switch over. The first UK analogue switch off is in Whitehaven Cumbria in October. Are we ready?

John Plunkett writes in the Guardian 17/08/2007

In a world of digital TV, video-on-demand and the iPod, radio risked being left behind. There is something rather old-fashioned about switching on your “wireless”, a term more likely to refer to broadband internet these days.

…

Another 2.7 million of us listen to podcasts downloaded on to our iPod or other MP3 player, up from 1.9 million. It is radio, but not as we once knew it.

Article for e|thursday in the Irish Independent by Marie Boran

(full article available online here)

Brian Greene, podcasting, blogging and social media consultant with Talking Voices.com, says podcasting, or the recording and on-demand broadcasting of audio, is not just for those who can’t make it on the day.
“Now people are going to conferences to meet and greet other people and to network, not necessarily to attend the speeches.

“They listen to the podcasts on the journey home because there’s a more valuable event going on at a conference: in the corridors and breakout rooms.”

Podcasting for events isn’t just a matter of hitting the record button and waiting. It is an integral part of building the whole conference feel. “These are becoming the tools of the conference trade, which will become the norm in the future.”

As well as capturing all the speeches, Greene interviews speakers and sponsors afterwards and carries out audience vox pops to capture the atmosphere of the event.

Even pre-event build-up can be generated on an organisation’s website, hosting podcast interviews with participants in the run-up to the big day in what Greene calls a “trailer-cum-teaser”.

“Podcasting has extended the reach of the conference. Conferences are happening before they happen. They can live on forever because of the recording.

“While the physical conference remains the same, things are changing on the periphery and podcasting has changed it on all fronts.”

Because the physical conference remains unchanged, it requires the same invitations, bookings, payments and invoicing requirements that can be a nightmare for the event organiser.