Listening to radio stations on a computer is easy, but the broadcast schedule doesn’t always fit in with our own. Finally listening to programmes at a time that suits you is, thankfully, getting easier with the advent of podcasts, the online audio broadcasts that can be automatically downloaded and listened to at your convenience.
Unlike ordinary music downloads, podcasting lets you subscribe to a free online radio programme and ensures that you never miss an episode.
This ‘save now, listen later’ phenomenon began as a way for enthusiasts and small internet radio stations to make shows available for people to listen to on Apple’s Ipod music player, hence the ‘pod’ in the name.
It has since gained attention from a number of bigger players in the broadcasting world and now it’s possible to listen to most podcasts on any portable player.
In this feature, we’ll explain how podcasting can benefit you, show you which podcasts are available over the internet and how to get them.
Podcasting at home
Although Ireland only accounts for about 100 of the roughly 80,000 global podcasts, this burgeoning crop of Celtic podcasts caters for a wide range of tastes and needs. For example, RTE has started a trial podcasting service (www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast) that covers a number of its radio stations, including Radio 1, 2FM, and Raidio na Gaeltachta.
For music lovers, new music from Irish artists is showcased in podcasts from Newmusicireland.com and Podcastingireland.ie.
In education, the progressive Sligo IT is even offering information on degrees in engineering via podcasts (www.itsligo.ie/online)!
Podcasting abroad
Beyond Ireland, thousands of podcasts await. A good starting point for exploring the world of podcasts is the exhaustive podcast directory www.podcast.net.
Getting started
The most important tool you’ll need is a portable audio player that is compatible with MP3s. The next requirement is a podcast receiver, sometimes called an aggregator, which is a tool that automatically downloads your podcast audio.
There are dozens of podcast applications available on the Internet but for the purpose of this feature we’ll concentrate on one of the most popular applications, Juice, which is available for free at Juicereceiver.sourceforge.net.
Get started
Click on the Windows logo and choose where to download the software from – a list of sites that offer the software (called mirrors) will appear. Select your location and click on ‘Download’. When prompted, save the file to your Desktop – the 6Mb download should take about 20 minutes on a dial-up Internet connection. When complete, double-click on the file to install it and follow the instructions given on screen. It’s simple and only takes a minute or so.
The next step is to subscribe to a podcast. This can be done by locating the unique address of your chosen podcast. Subscribing to the Newmusicireland.com podcast, for example, can be done by clicking here(www.newmusicireland.com/download.html) and copying the supplied podcast link (www.newmusicireland.com/rss.xml). Podcast links are different to standard web addresses and are commonly referred to as ‘feeds’.
Once the address has been copied, start Juice and click on the Subscriptions tab on the toolbar near the top of the program. Click on the Add new feed button (the green circle containing a plus symbol), paste the feed address into the URL bar of the Add A Feed box and then click on Save. This automatically subscribes you to your chosen podcast.
The next step is to download audio programmes contained within the feed. Click on the name of the feed you’ve just added and Juice will automatically download available episode information. From the list of current and past shows select the adjacent checkbox for those you want to download. To download the selected programmes simply press the Check/Download Selected Feed button (the blue circle with the white inverted triangle).
By default, files are downloaded to the ‘My Received Podcasts’ folder that Juice creates in your My Documents folder, but this can be changed by clicking on File*Preferences*General, entering your chosen folder, and clicking on the Save button.
Once shows have downloaded, the easiest way to play them is to click on the Downloads tab and click the play button (the green circle containing a white triangle) next to your downloaded shows. Doing this instantly opens the file in your default media player such as Windows Media Player or Itunes.
The process of transferring the files from a PC to a portable MP3 player differs depending on the individual player. As a general rule, though, this usually involves running your music transfer software and going through the usual transfer process.
Podcasting evolves
The only drawback of podcasting is the issue of musical copyright. Personal audio players were designed primarily with music playback in mind, so it is somewhat ironic that the only thing restricting the popularity of podcasts among large radio stations is the fact that they aren’t allowed to distribute commercial music using this medium.
These issues are being ironed out between the various radio stations and record companies, but the most likely outcome is that podcasts will have to comply with digital rights management (DRM) formatting. Like that used by many legal download services, this will restrict the amount of times a podcast can be copied to a device or listened to, in order to prevent podcasts illegally appearing on file-sharing networks.
Although it is likely to make a greater number of podcasts available, not all portable audio players are compatible with DRM audio, and those that are may only understand DRM audio on particular audio formats. It will complicate what is currently very simple.
The Apple Ipod, for example, is DRM-compatible, but only with material downloaded via its own Itunes music service. This service is now podcast compatible, but you’ll only be able to listen to Itunes podcasts on the move using an Ipod.
Other podcasters may distribute DRM-enabled shows, but these are more likely to be WMA files which are not compatible with Ipods. If this is the case, you’ll need to invest in a WMA-ready media player such as the Creative Zen Micro.
You choose
Podcasts are an excellent example of the way in which computing is enabling people to make more choices about what they do and when. It costs nothing to get started and, as podcasting becomes more popular, it won’t be long before you need never miss a favourite radio programme again.
Podcasting trivia
Insights into the latest media craze
An astonishing 2.8 million podcasts were downloaded from the BBC in March 2006 alone.
Other interesting podcasts include those on topics you wouldn’t normally associate with radio. Autoblog now provides a podcast featuring the latest news from the world of cars, and there is talk of some banks making financial advice available in a podcasting format. In the meantime, you can still access thousands of music podcasts via the Internet.
As a general rule, new programme files will be made available shortly after broadcast, but in some cases this may take several hours.
In the political arena, the British Liberal Democrats used podcasting as a means of broadcasting their political messages during the 2005 election campaign. US politicians such as John Edwards and Arnold Schwarzenegger have also used podcasts as election campaign tools.
Unsurprisingly, the corporate world hasn’t been slow to recognise the utility of podcasting. IBM, General Motors are just two of a number of blue chip companies that have developed podcast feeds as an effective way to communicate with clients, employees and investors.
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