Last week – coincident with the original Walkman’s 40th birthday – I saw all these articles reporting on this supposedly “world’s first” Bluetooth enabled portable Walkman-style cassette player/recorder, named IT’S OK (yes, the brand is in all caps). Reactions to this Kickstarter ranged from snarky to excited, but all the coverage struck me as a […]
This episode is a must-listen for podcast producers, anyone thinking of launching a podcast, or folks who just plain love podcasts. Julie Sabatier is a radio and podcast producer who recently decided to retire her successful and beloved podcast Rendered. Julie shares her nine-year journey into independent podcast production, and the many lessons she learned […]
Alex Blumberg’s podcasting company Gimlet Media just crowd-funded $200,00 in less than two days. Only the company didn’t use Kickstarter, Indiegogo or another familiar platform. Instead Gimlet invited qualified investors to become actual equity stakeholders under a provision of the 2012 JOBS Act. Gimlet ran this campaign using the help of a new platform called […]
The business of podcasting continues to attract serious coverage, which I report here each week. This week coverage comes from the Columbia Journalism Review and PBS’s MediaShift. There’s good reason for this attention: the business of podcasting is booming. This is a good thing for listeners, producers, and even stations The CJR piece focuses exclusively […]
In this week’s podcasting news: a look at Transom’s new “This Is Radio” video series, a comparison between digital magazines and podcasts, and a Kickstarter update. The online and IRL public radio workshop Transom.org just premiered the This Is Radio video interview series. The first installment profiles Roman Mars, producer of the podcast and radio […]
There are a couple of interesting items about podcasting to review this week: NPR’s Mike Pesca is quitting to host a Slate Magazine podcast, and a look at different funding methods for ’casts. Before I start, in the interest of full disclosure I want to let readers know that for the next month I will […]
One of the recurring topics of discussion around podcasts is the fact that it seems like a relatively small number of people actually listen to them, especially compared to the audience for videos of cats playing the theremin. Comedian and podcaster Graham Elwood told me, “I feel like podcasting (now) is kind of like Rock […]
Podcasters looking to fund their productions are looking to a variety of methods to raise money. As I discussed Tuesday, many podcasts are taking on advertisers. Another tact gaining prominence is crowd-funding. Podcaster Roman Mars turned heads last year when his Kickstarter raised more than $170,000–more than 4 times his goal–to fund season three of […]
There’s a lot of love here at Radio Survivor for the most famous and prolific booster of humorous, novelty and parody music on the radio, Dr. Demento. Filmmakers Scott McKenzie and Devin Lucas want to document the life of the good Doctor in a movie titled “Under the Smogberry Trees: The True Story of Dr. […]
Last year we posted about the Decentralized Dance Party’s appearance at SXSW. The DDP uses a low-power unlicensed FM transmitter worn in a backpack, instead of a PA, to broadcast dance party music in public places to participants carrying boombox radios all tuned to the same frequency. Project founders Tom and Gary call it “The […]
