Podcast Content Leaving Radio Content in the Dust

 

Live radio, news or sports, is great, but overall it appears podcast content is leaving radio content in the dust. Addressing this matter I posted a while ago, Drive-In Freak writes:

I'm at a point where I almost never listen to broadcast radio anymore (at least not in real time and over the air), even though I have been collecting radios for many years. There's about 100 of them in my home collecting dust. Why? Content. There simply isn't much that's worth listening to anymore.
From time to time I'll dust one off and surf for DX, but that's about it.

I drive for a living and yet STILL don't listen to the radio.

Now I either listen to my own music collection or podcasts. There's a lot of good stuff out there to listen to, and podcasts aren't strangled by out of date and far too restrictive FCC content regulations.

Some of my favorites:
The Mike O'Meara Show (formerly of Don and Mike)
http://mikeomearashow.com/

The Jorge Rodriguez Show (formerly of The Neil Rogers Show)
http://www.thejorgerodriguezshow.com/

Penn's Sunday School (Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller)
http://pennsundayschool.com/page/episodes

 

Comments

[Angelo]

I'm not feeling this at all. I think the shared experience of listening to (or watching something) live trumps any convenience a podcast can offer. I live in the Washington, DC area and have some good radios. I can find something of interest to me on the radio almost 24/7, with a few exceptions. Weekend mornings are sometimes lousy, with paid programming (and not even GOOD paid programming). Sometimes, late nights aren't great locally----but at that hour, I can pull out a good DX machine and find some good programming in other cities. I do understand the huge choice in podcasts, but for me, a podcast is an exception of something I really want to hear----while the rule is live radio. "Shared experience" is what makes the Super Bowl so important----and events like the moon landing. "Live" is king.

[Keith Beesley]

Like Angelo, I live in a radio-rich area, so I can almost always find something to listen to on AM or FM: NPR talk, classical music, jazz, political talk of several flavors, sports talk, big-band standards, classic country, old and new rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, world music. At night it gets even better, when distant AM and SW stations come in, and the non-commercial college stations on FM get more creative. However, I can understand the appeal of podcasts. If I lived in a more rural area, I would probably depend on podcasts, satellite radio or streaming web audio a lot more.

[Bill]

It struck me the other day, watching the endless parade of cars driving past the office each car occupied by a single, isolated human being, that our media experience is going the way of public transit. The reasons are the same too. With the mass solution you have to wait for a set time and share the experience with many others. With the individual solution you choose what you want exactly when you want it.

Having your own car is the ultimate in convenience, if you ignore the expense and the traffic jams. It does lead to an isolated life, though, where you seldom meet anyone who isn't just like you-- or anyone else at all, for that matter. Here I am, corresponding with a couple dozen like minded friends all over the world, but I couldn't name or recognize the neighbors in the houses next to mine.

Podcasts are doing the same thing. There was a time when, left or right, rich or poor, we all got our news from Uncle Walter. We might object to the Evul Librul Bias of him telling stories we didn't want to hear, but at least in our politics we were all debating the same basic information. Now we all live in our own little automobile bubbles and our own little podcast echo chambers. Our neighbors live in theirs. We're not getting any of the same information at all. Then we wonder why our neighbors dare to have a crazy opinion which doesn't line up with our own! What's wrong with him? How dare he disagree with the Obvious Truth of My Sacred Prejudices?