Anyone get yesterday's Sun Herald?

Apparently there was a story on us in the Sun-Herald yesterday. Anyone in Sydney happen to have a copy they could scan for us? 

Comments

[Ben]

They one day I don't buy it, it has something worth reading.

So, er, how where the logies Cam? ;)

[Daniel]

I can see the details on the Gulliver database, but not the actual article text yet for some reason.

The frequency of Generation C; BUZZ; [Late Edition]
Steve Dow. Sun Herald. Sydney, N.S.W.: May 1, 2005. p. 74

Will post the text if I get hold of it.

[Daniel]

The frequency of Generation C; BUZZ; [Late Edition]
Steve Dow. Sun Herald. Sydney, N.S.W.: May 1, 2005. pg. 74

When a radio licence costs millions, it's little wonder traditional broadcasters are quaking at the spread of the podcast, Steve Dow writes.

TREVOR Cook is a podcast listener, the kind of person making radio stations nervous. Every day, he grabs his iPod, which is constantly synched to his computer, overnight receiving new daily talk and music podcasts to which he subscribes via the internet at no cost.

Cook can now listen via his portable audio carrier on his morning park walk to fresh blues music programs from the US, to alternative country and folk music, and lots of lively talk, from radio professionals to enthusiastic amateurs.

The 50-year-old Sydneysider is hearing music he'd otherwise never have heard one podcasting station specialises in distributing music from unsigned bands and he's stimulated by hearing sections of US public radio, or interviewer Melvyn Bragg from the BBC.

Cook, who is also an internet blogger, is a convert to new media from a generation that defies the myth that technologically smart new ways of receiving entertainment are designed only for the young. "You've got to get into it," he says of podcasting. "It's changed my life."

Cameron Reilly, a former Microsoft employee and one of the pioneers of podcasting in Australia, calls it Generation C: defined not so much by age as an openness to create or listen to content that appeals to niche interests, which formulaic commercial radio is failing to satisfy.

But radio station owners, forced to pay at least $50 million per city for a broadcasting licence in Australia, are seething at the new podcasting possibilities, opening the field up to all comers.

Podcasts might be thought of as spoken word blogs, but they are a lot more besides. Just as blogging has made anyone who wants to set up an interactive website diary an overnight digital journalist, podcasting allows any amateur to become a radio broadcaster, able to package shows cheaply and send them as digital files around the world.

The radio industry's association, Commercial Radio Australia, has asked the Federal Government for a decade's protection against all new entrants. Yet, given the wild west nature of the internet, the station owners may have a hard time enforcing such a wish, particularly when the bulk of podcasters are based overseas.

Commercial Radio Australia chief executive Joan Warner says she sees podcasting as just another way of broadcasting radio. "Certainly our request to government is no new entrants for up to 10 years," she says.

Cook doesn't care about the imbroglio over new choices. He's tired of listening to whingeing talkback radio, he says, or FM stations whose announcers and music all sound the same.

Launched only last August in the US, there are now more than 4000 podcast programs. This year a handful but growing in number of programs have emerged out of Australia for local and overseas consumption, covering business news, AFL matches, movies, jazz, media, sport and technology, among other subjects.

The files are in MP3 format, the same way music is saved for playing on iPods and other portable audio players. Listeners receive their choices through subscription via software known as RSS, for "really simple syndication".

Podcasts are starting to attract sponsorship and advertising, but are generally given away. The word podcast is an amalgam of the words iPod and broadcasting, although the name is a misnomer: users don't require an iPod to subscribe. The digital files can be sent to any MP3 player, such as a top-of-the-range mobile phone.

Some radio stations are quietly getting in on the act. National network Austereo, whose stations include Melbourne's Triple M and Sydney's 2Day FM, has been trialling "best of" content packages of radio shows as podcasts. DMG, which runs Nova, is also toying with the idea and ABC stations such as youth radio Triple J have put their toes in the podcast pond. Britain's BBC and National Public Radio in the US also issue podcasts.

Austereo head of new media strategy Mark Neely said in March the network's podcasting initiative was a "pre-emptive" move. "We're very aware there's a growing generation of people who don't think radio when they think music and audio content," he says.

Two businessmen who see money in podcasting's future are Mick Stanic and Cameron Reilly, who started Australia's Podcast Network in February. The network has launched 14 weekly podcast shows The BizBlog Show, The Gadget Show, The AFL Show and The Jazz Show among others and has 10 more in post-production.

Stanic quit a job as executive producer with the interactive arm of big gun Sydney advertising firm Singleton Ogilvy and Mather to join Reilly, who left his job as an e-business solutions manager at Microsoft. The pair host one of their network's shows, G'day World. During March, the pair say, 60,000 shows were downloaded from their website. Their podcast listeners come from 128 countries.

Stanic says it's all part of a trend over the past 10 years of the internet eating away at traditional media. Amateur podcasters are generally experts in their area, from sport to technology to media: their precise appeal is that they don't sound like the silken voices of professional radio. "The world is changing," he says. "It's all about having a conversation, not being talked down to."

Reilly and Stanic plan to make podcasting pay by having sponsors' ads run during the podcast. They say future technology will allow advertising to be tailored to the listener.

To cut overheads, Australia's Podcast Network is run out of New York: the $US177 ($230) a month cost of web hosting is a snap compared with tens of millions of dollars for a radio licence in one Australian city.

And the efforts by commercial radio to erect barriers? "It's incredibly silly," Stanic says. "I don't think they can control the internet in any way, shape or form."
[Illustration]
Caption: TWO PHOTOS: PHOTO: PIONEERING STOCK: Cameron Reilly, a trail blazer in podcasting, defines the field as making up for much of commercial radio's deficiencies. Picture: RODGER CUMMINS