Last year, right around this time, the hype on podcasts was deafening – especially after a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project dubiously claimed that over six million people, representing 29 per cent of portable MP3 player owners, downloaded audio files for listening on their own time. Recently, market research company Forrester calculated that audience is more like one per cent of online North American homes – while estimating the number should gradually increase over the next five years. This reality check further deflated expectation that some eccentric raconteurs might attain notoriety on a mass scale, through the magic of accessing individual earbuds. Plus, the scramble by commercial radio stations to soak up the podcasting limelight – supplying feeds like day-old Roger, Rick & Marilyn highlights – might’ve discouraged audio exhibitionists from making waves during the novelty phase afforded this delivery system last spring. However, the recent launch of a full line-up of CBC Radio Podcasts reflects a stateside trend, where public broadcasters have found a new platform – at the growing peril of on-air funding drives. Print media spin-off podcasts may or may not prove a wishful way of sustaining reader devotion (The Toronto Star’s roster is here) but mercifully past the stage where it’s imagined that a mass audience is eager to listen to editorial board meetings. So, where does that leave the potential rec room radio star? The foursevens podcast network, run by Tod Maffin, has been building up its roster in the hope of rewarding independent creators with sponsor revenue. A crop of decidedly non-commercial lefty efforts also circulate via the rabble podcast network. There’s a regular national audio overview at Canadian Podcast Buffet, and members of this cross-country clique will gather in Kingston on June 23-24 for a convention called Podcasters Across Borders. So, while it’s apparently sunk in that sampling MP3-based dialogue by anyone who isn’t Ricky Gervais is a lot more cumbersome than skimming words on a screen, the prospect of more independent voices breaking through this medium, and potentially defining this future, remains intact. Those possibilities will be explored this weekend (May 13-14) at Harbourfront Centre, where digifest 2006 incorporates a pair of panels on the state of radio, and a Podcasting 101 workshop, too.
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Seems like all the chatter about podcasting throughout 2005 can be chalked up to folks nostalgic for the mid-’90s novelty of oddball homepages, voyeuristic webcams, and quaint displays of stumbling around with HTML code. All the attention has resulted in a medium maligned by more people than have investigated the possibilities, a condition familiar to any reformed internet skeptic. Maybe some professional intervention will motivate folks to record and distribute the kind of creative intensity that the AM/FM dial – let alone satellite radio – can’t facilitate. Harbourfront Centre is courting the crunchy granola crowd based on the overly polite debut episode of their podcast, although are now taking soundwork submissions, and hopefully injecting a bit of irreverence. Reflecting what’s possible from the professional broadcast sphere is a CBS News podcast documentary on the hurricane year in review, an extended-length report by local boy Chris Mavridis called Mean Season. (Downloadable via iTunes) But seeking to harness the efforts of independent creators into something grander is CBC Radio’s Tod Maffin, swinging through for a podcaster meetup next Tuesday (Dec. 13) with an outlet to share ideas, swap tech tips, and solicit ideas on where the public broadcaster should be heading with its in-demand audio offerings.
With the podcasting bubble now fully blown – the countdown begins to see how long it takes to pop – the platform may seem crowded with players begging to put their best banter forward. But hopefully that won’t discourage a certain kind of fearlessness only the young can project into a microphone, with the remote expectation a stranger will be interested in listening, like a couple of local early adpoters who’ve been churning out shows through most of this year. The Tank is a podcast gliding into its second season of Aurora-bred buddies Jordan, Danno and Robar grappling to determine whose ideas are most worthy of being amplified, busting plenty of chops along the way. Radio Free Calamity stars 14-year-old "Cruzette", with her kid brother "Silent" and friend "Poison" – after being extremely prolific last spring, Grade 9 has found her output trailing off, but she’s hopefully got some time left before that enthusiasm turns to ennui.
The Tank [podcast]
Radio Free Calamity [podcast]
Podcasters are leaving their dungeons for this weekend’s Portable Media Expo in Ontario, California, although there’s no apparent representation from Ontario, Canada. Not that you haven’t heard enough hype about the medium – most local FMs, including the CBC’s Metro Morning, quickly latched on to the premise that every digital file of radio blather is just a click away from being delivered to listeners subscribing to a copyright-free feed. But the true potential of portability, in both the creation and consumption of audio (and increasingly video) programming, hasn’t quite infested the GTA. Maybe it’s because anyone with an urge to speak into a microphone will drift into a local campus radio station. Yet, the relative simplicity of crafting a podcast without time or space constraints on either end – along with all the other levels of interactivity – is what’s seeding the enthusiasm. Having something to say, and finding the audience that wants to hear it, can be a different challenge entirely. Rabble.ca formally launched their leftorium of podcasts this week; Blog T.O. has been posting shows on music and movies; the Toronto Star is sorting out possibilities. The fact that podcasting has its own confab may mean little beyond enough companies not wanting to miss out on another bubble – it does require buying equipment – although, after a decade-plus of interweb shenanigans, all the tools don’t mean squat if no original thoughts are being nurtured. The CD-ROM Store (345 Danforth Ave.) amends its own name with a public forum on podcasting, Sunday from 2-4 p.m.
There’s no shortage of books, articles and websites from narcissistic new parents making like they’re the first humans to ever have a kid, leading one to wonder if they only reproduced so that they could blab about it. But as for a podcast – well, since it’s been fewer than nine months since the medium started its widespread adoption, give it a while. Two Boobs and a Baby stars Toronto lifer Dave Delaney and his Tennessee-born wife Heather, who met in Galway, Ireland. The third member of their cast didn’t bother showing up until after the first two October episodes, entering a world where he’s got his very own message board; a week into his life, Sam Delaney’s podcasting debut is imminent. In the meantime, two pre-natal installments of Two Boobs can be scanned, thanks to shownotes that point to Dave and Heather yammering on crucial matters such as "tips for swelling hands", "chicken bones are bad for babies" and "ticking time bomb".
Two Boobs and a Baby [podcast]
Not that they’re hard to find in this town, but why bother seeking out a pair of keeners swapping thoughts on hockey or movies to eavesdrop on when podcasts can be directly delivered to your ears each week? Mamo! is the expectorate of two aging GenXers, both named Matthew, picking apart the latest Hollywood schlock with the acuity of video store clerks – more Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles than Ebert & Roeper. A Foot in the Crease hosts Dave and Jeff are the sort of fellas who’d get cut off within 40 or 50 seconds on sports talk radio. But with their 40 or 50 minutes of MP3 file time, they can dissect a week in the NHL at home and away, grapple with big words and, unlike the prominent voices on the Toronto AM dial, aren’t going to argue the Leafs were a better team when they were in head office.
MAMO! [podcast]
A Foot in the Crease [podcast]
Air Out My Shorts is a weekly dialogue between "Preston Buttons" and "The Word Whore". The centerpiece of their potty-mouthed podcast, delivered for each of the past 23 weeks, is a smut-filled tale submitted by a listener – along with the couple’s interjections, accompanied by the sound of clinking ice cubes. Their brand of lasciviousness is a real throwback to early-early-’80s Toronto-esque innuendo as manifested through relics like the Spumante Bambino girl and the nudie stage musical Let My People Come – or Live Earl Jive and Beverly Hills from the heyday of CFNY, sort of. And if those references are before your time, then perhaps you’re still young enough to find the conversation titillating. "Groundbreaking for literature", reads a comment on the show at Podcast Alley, "could help discover the next Margaret Lawrence or Hemmingway". (sic2)
Air Out My Shorts [podcast]
The goal of highlighting a different GTA podcast each week may be a tad ambitious – so, why not raise the bar by linking to two at once? Given how the overhyped medium has been slower to ignite in Canada than the U.S., maybe it’s not a coincidence that both are from Americans who’ve taken up residence here. Quirky Nomads is a multimedia site maintained by a woman named Sage, including photos and stories. Plus, each observational diary post is delivered in digestible audio form, described as "The story of a family that said, ‘If the Republicans get any worse, we’re moving to Canada.’ And then? They really did." However, the anecdotes are rather serene slices of urban domestic living. Description: Valerie in Toronto is a more customary 40-minute weekly compendium of soundseeing and monologues, whose hostess was "born in the U.S.A. but Canadian by choice". So far, most shows focus on a field trip: TIFF, Taste of the Danforth, Niagara Falls, etc.
Quirky Nomads [podcast + journal]
Description: Valerie In Toronto [podcast]
While the dominant genre in the past year’s emergence of podcasting has been "married couple banter" – recalling popular radio formulae of the 1940s according to a recent USA Today piece – the tension of a freshly severed relationship may improve a homemade show’s lucidity. The courtin’ co-hosts of Toronto-based Molar Radio – which debuted in March – split up last month, and the subsequent episode was full of awkward pauses on top of their typically lethargic dialogue. Discussion of feelings didn’t seem to be the forté of Chris and Erin, as they reviewed the graphic novels and comic books he purchased each week. Reunited for a fresh 27th episode yesterday, they’ve suddenly gotten over the disaffected mic technique in favour of a mostly buoyant conversation. Sure, it’s called a breakup because it’s broken, but time will tell if all that can be transcended with a podcasting fix.
Molar Radio [podcast]
