Independent radio stations are finally catching on to the podcasting craze. JESSICA AMASON explains what took so long.
When podcasting got its start, it seemed like the perfect way for the little guy to bend the ear of audio junkies everywhere.
Flash foward six years and the commercial market, specifically talk radio, seems to be the big winner. The big networks use the downloadable files as a sort of Tivo for radio -- pre-recorded audio feeds that can be accessed anywhere at any time.
But all may not be lost for underdogs of independent and college radio. This summer, Seattle's KEXP-FM 90.3, a college/independent radio hybrid, became the first of its kind to incorporate podcasting, starting a trend.
"We wanted to start doing podcasting but weren't sure what the rest of the industry was going to do about getting music rights," explains KEXP-FM Associate Program Director John Richards. "Listeners would email us about other stations doing podcasts and we'd ask 'Are they doing music?' and they'd say 'Well, no, it's just talk.' So unless we could put songs out there like we do on our airwaves it didn't seem worth doing."
Music podcasts were slow to take off because it was difficult to get permission to podcast songs sent over radio waves -- record labels are reluctant to give away downloadable versions of their songs. But KEXP-FM met with its lawyers to draw up podcasting contracts for musicians, and station DJs began calling various independent bands for in-studio performances.
Finally, this summer, KEXP began offering hour-long podcasts featuring unsigned bands and became the nation's first terrestrial station to provide a low-bandwidth stream for cell phones and handheld devices.
Since then, many independent and college radio stations followed KEXP-FM's lead, giving the independent and college radio community more options for putting out new and underground music to a wider audience. They've proven more innovative than commercial radio podcasts -- instead of rebroadcasting, they're designing DJ mixes with bands they've sought out on their own.
Podcasts have helped these stations overcome their limitations: tradional broadcast format, FCC regulation and, perhaps most importantly, the geographic constraints of low wattage stations.
Richards said independent bands seemed to have no qualms about participating in podcasts, realizing the potential for broader exposure with the D.I.Y. approach to distributing music. When KEXP-FM approached California band Foreign Born for permission to podcast their in-studio performance, the group signed on without hesitation.
"What I like about these podcasts is that you can play different versions of your songs, cover songs or whatever and it's not a serious ordeal to get it out there and you don't have to deal with the finances of distributing it," says Foreign Born bassist Ariel Rechtshaid.
Many independent and college radio stations followed KEXP-FM's lead. Non-profit organizations such as "Tables Turned" have sprung up across cyberspace to provide contact information for record labels, podcasting kits, contract templates and even a "PlaySafe" library that provides access to thousands of songs pre-cleared for podcasting.
KEXP-FM designs music shows specifically as podcasts, using their library of "safe" songs that are legal to transmit.
"We've been going to labels and getting blocks of songs we can add to our library of stuff we use for podcasting," says Richards. "We don't podcast any of the shows we do on the airwaves, but we'll go into our library, pull stuff to use then create a show based around that."
That means the podcast shows are an entirely new arena that don't take away from the regular radio broadcasts. Raymond Wiley, General Manager of The University of Georgia's WUOG-FM 90.5, claims that podcasting has shown no decline in the station's listenership, and for good reason.
"We need to think about where radio wins out right now: it's an environmental thing, something you listen to in your car or while you're at work," says Wiley, "Radio will always have this audience."
For the independent music community, it seems podcasting's role is only getting stronger.
"It's an independent situation with a community supporting it," Rechtshaid says. "And really, it's about people believing in the future."
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asap contributor Jessica Amason is a freelance writer in New York.
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