More than 8 million people in the UK listen to web-based radio services every week and nearly 2 million download podcasts on a weekly basis, according to a survey that suggests internet radio has hit the mainstream.

These are interesting figures but:

“This survey is very much a toe in the water,” said the Rajar research director, Paul Kennedy.

More at the Guardian.

And I have to agree.  I’ve been banging on about content is king and delivery being transparent for a long time.  He says:

“I am not a podcaster. I’m a journalist, a pundit, an entertainer. I create audio and video shows and distribute them over the Internet. Maybe that’s YouTube, maybe it’s my own web site, maybe it’s via an RSS feed. The medium isn’t the message - the message is the message. It’s not a podcast, it’s a show, and I plan to call my shows by the right name from now on.”

It’s a great post, so go read it.

That was the headline on one of the stories in the Guardian this week, and it came on the day the radio industry celebrated the best of the best at the annual Sony Awards.

On a poll commissioned by Sony and carried out by ICM it seems the industry has underestimated how many people are listening to audio and radio content on devices other than radios. Here’s some of the key figures:

Three in 10 people listen to radio via the internet
More than four in 10 listen via digital TV
One in five listens on an MP3 or other digital music player
One in eight listens via a mobile phone with a built-in tuner, rising to one in three among 18 to 24-year-olds, a far higher proportion than any other age group

What does that mean to you if your thinking of podcasting or creating some time-shifted content?

It means more and more people are listening using iPod type devices or mobile phones. These devices are hungry for content. The owners of these devices are getting more used to the technology and the ability to create their own radio schedule, something that has big implications for traditional radio. It means that if you have cool, compelling, useful, interesting content, there is a way to get that content to a whole load of listeners.

For a free consultation, call Audemos on +44 (0) 208 144 7597

Audemos recently signed a 12 month contract with Jack Brand Marketing to support them with music and sound production for the international beer brand Heineken.

Jack Brand creates and distributes content for different brands ranging from Haymarket Publishing through to Heineken and V2 records.

“It’s great to have Audemos working closely with Jack Brand as our business develops. With new clients coming on board it’s essential that we have the kind of professional skills they offer at hand so that we can respond to our clients requirements”

John Hazell, Jack Brands Commercial Director.

Audemos couldn’t agree more.

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - theatre: The podcast’s the thing to revive radio drama

Interesting piece on the podcasting boom, Odeo’s demise and Apples success in claiming over half the podcast directory users almost overnight.

I think it’s great that Apple made it so easy for so many people to link up with new niche content.  I have to say that a lot of the podcasting content is rubbish, but that’s because it’s so easy for anyone to do the tech stuff.  That doesn’t mean everyone is a great story teller or that everyone even has a story to tell.  For Audemos, podcasting is a great way to deliver content.  Doesn’t mean we will stop making great radio shows for traditional radio stations or sonic branding for organisations that understand the power of sound.  But, podcasting allows us to create a series or channel and offer that to the world, and in days of old, like 3 years ago, we would have had to go through a long commissioning process chasing maybe a few time slots.

PODCASTING: Battle over — and Apple won - Valleywag

When will listening to and accessing podcasts be transparent

Hopefully very soon.  Songbird promises to be a new kind of media player.  Bloggers have called it “The Firefox of media players”.  Songbird themselves say this,

Songbird™ is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins (feathers). Like Firefox®, it is built from Mozilla®, cross-platform and open source.

It is currently in public beta, and has been for around 12 months.  It’s meant to be out of beta sometime in 2007, and it won’t be a moment too soon.

At Audemos, we want to offer our clients the easiest way for their users to listen to their podcasts.  And when we say easy, we mean pretty and easy.  Right now, there is no easy way for everyone to access podcasts on every platform, it just doesn’t exist.  Songbird goes a long way to sort this problem.

Songbird works on Windows, Mac and Linux.  It works with iPods and most other MP3 players.  It can sync with iTunes and can also play music you have bought from the iTunes music store.  But, the best bit for me is the browser that allows you to search for podcasts using google/yahoo/search engine.  You can browse to pages that have podcast feeds, and Songbird searches out all media on that page and allows you to download them to add to your iPod or stream them.

Listening to podcasts needs to become as easy as switching a radio on or playing a CD, and Songbird is a small wingflap in the right direction.

Croncasts review says it best

I haven’t been this excited about a technology or piece of software since I first found out about podcasting.

So go check it out.

There’s a great story on the New York Times website about authors podcasting their own works.

Several times a week Mr. Sigler, 37, steps into a walk-in closet in his San Francisco home. He reads into a microphone that connects to his computer via a sound mixer. Hanging shirts envelop him, masking ambient sound.

Our creative director Simon has been involved in a similar project called Welcome to mars.  Here’s the blurb:

Ken Hollings presents a live twelve-part series of unscripted reflections on the fantasy of science in the early years of the American Century

With electronic sound production by Simon James

Between 1947 and 1959, the future was written about, discussed and analysed with such confidence that it became a tangible presence. This is a story of weird science, strange events and even stranger beliefs, set in an age when the possibilities for human development seemed almost limitless.

Each show was produced live and broadcast on Resonance FM in London.  The recordings were later turned into a podcast series.  The main difference with Welcome to mars is that the shows came first, and the book is coming out hopefully this year.

You can subscribe to Welcome to mars here.

If your an author that would like some help creating rich audio versions of your work, get in touch with Audemos.

“Despite the small base of users, podcasting represents an attractive medium, given its targeting, its low cost and its obsessive/passionate user base, says the report. “These people constitute an excellent media target,” Belcher said. “It’s a self-selecting medium. These people are into it, and they’re really into it.”

The story goes on to say that Google will soon offer an audio version of Ad Sense for podcasts - offering small and big advertisers an easy way to traffic their ads into any number of podcasts. They already offer a service this for normal radio, after the purchase of Dmarc for $102 million last year.

Read the whole story at Media Week.

This is a nifty one for ripping radio.

“The MusicDock is a portable MP3 player and a stand alone FM-radio with MP3 capture technology”

“Simply tune in any radio station and dock the MP3 player. The MusicDock recognizes any music category and captures the separate songs automatically”

“No computers or internet connections are needed to collect your MP3 tracks! It’s very easy to use.”

Well it sounds good in principle, but somehow I am thinking that a DAB tuner might have helped…and if collecting mp3s is what it’s all about…I think I’ll collect mine without the guidance of my local radio schedulers.

Thanks to Donald Melanson at Engadget for pointing this one out.