Funferal

Pew report not the full story

There’s been a flurry of coverage of the Pew report on podcasting earlier this week showing that 12% of (US) internet users have downloaded podcasts. Most reports have framed this as “only 12%” or looked below the fold at the 1% who claim to download podcasts every day, concentrating on how low the numbers are. A few, in contrast, have pointed to the increase in the headline figure (up 70% in 6 months). The Daily Tech article also points to Forrester research that predicts a relatively low audience for podcasts by 2010 (12m, in contrast to a Diffusion Group prediction of 56m by the same point in time).
Obviously, these numbers are of some consequence, but I think it’s missing the full story to concentrate only on them. Podcasting is part of the multi-platform future of audio, displacing the traditional production/broadcasting space. Perhaps as important as the end-user changes facilitated by the format is the new distribution/syndication channel opened up for producers. Many broadcasters, particularly at LPFM and community stations, are re-transmitting podcast content, just as they might in previous years have used cycling distribution networks, or even satellite. Thus, podcast downloads are only one part of a wider picture of the changing distribution environment.