Fighting for My Attention

I was just checking through my podcast list and I realised something - all of them are run by major companies, I don’t subscribe to a single personal podcast - that’s terrible.

I will make one major excuse for myself - I don’t have a huge amount of time to consume podcasts, radio, television, DVDs, computer games, books or the internet - I listen to my iPod while walking, I timeshift tv, I don’t play games and I read on the toilet - in fact I’ve been known to read while walking as well.

This means that I have to pick and choose my podcasts - I’m a big music fan and like to consume as much music as possible, often new music from unsigned or just signed bands (it’s part of my job as well) but my podcast time cuts into my music time which is why I have to be so selective.

Before I go any further here is the list of podcasts I currently subscribe to:

Best of Moyles
Channel 4 News
Digital Planet
The Xfm Sessions
Telegraph Podcast
The Now Show
Start the Week
Broadcasting House
Al Murray
Christian O’Connell

Oh and the one exception to the big business list and that is Whack My Bush - a brilliant piece of satire born of the same family as IDTV & Spitting Image.

The list above gives me a mix of technology, politics, entertainment, comedy and news - a full rounded weekly schedule of programming (the music is provided from the songs I’ve already added to my iPod).

I have had a couple of lone podcasts on there before but they don’t tend to last long - for the same reason that I stopped my generic podcast and the same reason that I doubt many people will keep the Jaffa Cake podcast for long - we like brands.

A large part of the top ten podcast list on iTunes is made up of well established brands, companies we know, trust and like, companies whose products we consume in other areas already - like newspapers, radio, television or magazines.

My feeling is that for the small time podcaster to hit the big time they need one of but ideally all of three key ingredients:

A top quality product
Something unique, original and well packaged. ESSENTIAL

A voice that sells
Doesn’t have to be an RP voice but something that is easy to listen to and or memorable.

A backer
I know podcasting is supposed to be the social revolution that will give everyone a chance to be a presenter but it won’t work that way.

OK so that might of worked in the early days when it was just Adam Curry but that won’t carry any more and will carry less and less as the big guys join in.

What’s needed is for podcasters to get together in a similar way to gaming clans and create uber podcast groups that cover a range of topics and that can share resources, information and even guests to create a selection of podcasts produced by a group that has a chance to brand and co-promote itself (XyP - the end of the line podcast group [for example]).

Either that or to try and sell yourself to a company - like a newspaper, radio station, tv station, magazine or well known website. It will be a lot easier than trying to get a radio show as there is a lot more to choose from and they don’t have to do much.

You offer to create the podcast, run the podcast, host the podcast and in return they give you a huge push and promotion - you get the lions share of advertising revnue or fame and they get to join in on a social revolution giving them something that enhances their core product.

This may even work with almost any company - you say I’ll run it as the FatCat podcast presented by J R Sellout for a fee and in return they include the url of the podcast on their promotion and marketing.

Podcasting will work as a business model (mores the pitty) and it’s only a matter of time before people realise that and jump on it heavily - it’s already getting harder for small timers to get noticed and it aint getting any better.

I will go back and add in links later - too late now but needed to get this off my chest.

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