Business podcasting in the UK

The second UK PodcastCon event highlighted the increasing use of podcasting as a business communications and marketing tool rather than just a hobbyist retort to mainstream radio.

By Ewan Spence, 8 Dec 2006 at 11:53

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The role of self-initiated content

The Citizen Journalism panel provided the most thoughtful ideas of the day, with both Neil McIntosh from The Guardian newspaper and Chris Vallance from the BBC joined by Suw Charman of the Open Rights Group and citizen journalist, John Buckley (who maintains a current affairs site at www.dissidentvox.com, where he discusses UK issues both in text and through podcast interviews). Again we saw the contrast from the existing media, who are using podcasting in some cases as a 'Play Again' delayed listening format, or as an extension to their news gathering efforts. John's site has bypassed this, and is taking news important to him and providing it to the listener, rather than airing his views on a "Have your Say" style comments page at the BBC.

One company that is using podcasting in a positive way is Magnatune, a record company that portrays itself as 'not evil.' John Buckman not only allows podcasters to use any of the music that his label promotes under a creative commons licence, but also provides podcasts from the site itself. There is a podcast for every genre and artist so music fans can hear the latest releases themselves. Rather than wait on a radio station to pick up his bands, he has essentially created his own. With over 70,000 listeners on the more popular genres his reach is similar to a local independent radio station in the UK

But there was also a strange consensus between attendees - there were no radically different points of views on where podcasting is going, nor was there any discussion on driving the media forward to face new challenges. These are ever present, hotly debated issues on various online forums and blogs, and I would have expected more from the panels to address these issues. One phrase I heard to describe the current make up of podcasters would be 'Professional Amateurs,' and I think the same goes for the organisers of PodcastCon - there are huge challenges for podcasting over the next year and I would have liked to have seen those addressed, rather than the 'isn't it all wonderfully lovely' panels that everyone simply agreed with.

* As well as being a freelance journalist, Ewan Spence is also a BAFTA-nominated podcaster for The Podcast Network.