JMS

Here’s an unsolicited podcasting idea, mainly for weekly or occasional public radio podcasts with a good number of subscribers.

• Think of each podcast as a dedicated channel with a captive audience of subscribers.
• This channel is mostly empty other than the one episode per week that you send along.
• What about using that space to introduce new content - a new podcast, a new segment, some new talent?

Imagine if, for example, Weekend America turned to one of the many independent producers it works with for the main weekly show, and had them produce a special podcast-only segment that would be dropped in as an extra episode in the feed.

Or now that This American Life is finally podcasting, what if Ira picked a story that didn’t make the cut (and there are always worthy ones that don’t make it)?

Of course it would need to be a) really good; and b) introduced and endorsed by the main show. You don’t want to annoy your existing subscribers with content they didn’t sign up for, and they do not necessarily experience the subscription as a “channel” at this point. And the adopted podcast wouldn’t be establishing their own direct subscription base — though that might be an ok trade-off to reach a bigger audience.

So far the majority of public radio podcasting is simply repurposing radio shows for digital distribution, often with some podcast-only intros and outros but little else original.

Most of the providers and producers of these podcasts would tell you there simply isn’t time or an efficient model for creating custom podcast-only content in addition to repurposing the show itself.

So that’s where the collaborative opportunity presents itself: adopt a podcast from someone else. For new podcasters it’s a struggle to build up an audience, but over here you have “channels” with tens of thousands of subscribers to these weekly public radio podcasts that are sitting empty.

Seems like an interesting way to nurture new talent and provide original content to new audiences.