In a panel at the Radio and Internet Newsletter Conference being held at the Westgate Hotel on Sunday, Podcast One Founder/CEO Norm Pattiz asked if this is the “golden age” of podcasting.
Andy Bowers, chief content officer for Slate/Panoply Media, said when he began podcasting, new vistas immediately opened. “Look at all the things you can do [with podcasting] that you can’t do on radio. There’s no clock and I can do it from my desk,” said the former NPR correspondent.
“We’re making it up as we go along,” said Bowers. “Podcasting is the way of the future.”
Pattiz said one of the reasons he got into podcasting after 35 years in radio is that podcast listeners are P1 listeners “and now you’ve got social media to promote to them.”
Pattiz asked Tom Leykis how podcasting is different than radio.
The host of “The Tom Leykis Show” said in radio “you spend 77% of your time chasing P2s and P3s, the people who don’t love you.”
In contrast, in podcasting, “the P1 is everything,” said Leykis.” They pay your bills, show up at events, Tweet about you. “When I worked at a station the listeners found commercials to be an intrusion, said Leykis. “In podcasting, the listener understands if they want their favorite programming, it’s got to have advertising.”
Podcasters are starting to become bigger players in the media ecosystem, noted Pattiz. “We sink or swim together.”
