Thursday, March 09, 2006

Australia's Podcasting Surprise - It is not a youthful craze but an oldie Rush

March 09

Sydney -- The Australian newspaper carried a story today that said in less than a year radio podcasting is rapidly moving from the realm of hip and hype into serious media.

The story noted that the ABC, the country's main podcaster, recorded 368,000 downloads last week compared with fewer than 50,000 a week when it started its serious push into the area last May.

There are 83 radio shows across ABC networks offering podcasts with specialist content on Radio National, especially science and health, and programs from the youth network Triple J the most popular.

Commercial broadcaster Austereo, which operates the metropolitan FM networks Today and Triple M, also reports a huge jump in demand.

Gordon Taylor, manager of podcasting for ABC radio, was quoted as saying content from 23 of Radio National's programs comprised nearly half (177,000) of last week's downloads. There were 88,000 downloads from Triple J, 63,000 from news and current affairs shows such as AM and 28,000 from Radio Australia, with the remainder spread across other networks.

A surprising fact - the majority of Radio National pod users were aged between 40 and 54.

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