How podcast is the new Radio.
A Long time ago when TV’s were not invented, the only form of public communication was the Radio. The imagined use case of the radio during that time was just to share news to large group of people about various events. This was in the early 1900’s when the technology was in its nascent stages and had not reached the mass public. The first public radio program was broadcast August 31, 1920, by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.
Soon after that radio became the prime medium of entertainment, news, music, and communication during the 1930’s and 40’s. But the thing that made it really popular was the ability to transmit music over the air to public at large. Music a medium which connects everyone, whether young or old music unites us all. And by sharing music over the air to all, radio suddenly became a public phenomenon basically, in more recent terms, it went viral.
But then came the World War II and the radio became even more important to the public. It was the primary source of news and information during the war. It gave the public the ability to know about everything happening in the war zone from the comfort of their homes. Understanding this importance, radio was used by both warring parties as a medium of propaganda, to create chaos and fear in the opposing camps and the general public.
Radio had become a powerful medium, it had the ability to impact a large number of people simultaneously. This power was quite evident when a radio play based on H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” was broadcast on Oct. 30, 1938. Upon listening to this play, the public started panicking, believing the chaos and carnage depicted over the airwaves were real. This was the impact of the Radio.
Now radio is old and over the years it has lost its charm to various other more powerful mediums such as Television and more recently, the Internet. And this has resulted in a sharp decline in the popularity of the radio.But still, there is a special charm about listening to stories in voice format which cannot be matched by the TV or the Internet or any other medium. Recently Alex Goldman from Reply All podcast said in another podcast:
“A picture say’s a thousand words, but a word tells a million stories.”
He said, when you tell someone a story he will use his imagination to give faces to all the characters of that story. This is also the reason people generally tend to hate movies after they have read a novel, because in their head they have already made a better rendering of the story, and the movie just doesn’t match up with that.
This charm, this ability to evoke imagination from listeners made the voice format to evolve from radio to podcast. And these same features are allowing this medium to compete with the much more popular formats of entertainment such as videos, GIF, blogs etc.
But what is a podcast exactly? A quick google search will tell you that Podcast is a digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or portable media player, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.
So essentially podcasts are small talk shows that are recorded and syndicated on the internet. These shows can follow any format from a basic talk show to even an investigative story, they can be sensitive and professional or can even be a roast.
But the things that make podcast stand far way away from its predecessor’s shadow is the freedom and diversity of topics. Podcast episodes are available over the internet, so anyone can listen to them when they want and wherever they want. This freedom is what gives the podcast its unique charm and charisma.
And the other good thing is the diversity of topics and shows, there were more than 250,000 unique podcasts on iTunes as of 2013. This number has obviously only gone up over the years. This diversity provides the users with a large number of options about what to listen to, there is a podcast on every topic one can imagine and even one can’t even imagine.
In this information age, podcasts are becoming a major source of knowledge and information. The various podcast which hosts some major influencers of various industry creates content that can help many listeners start their life, or even redefine it. For example, when I listened to the episode of The James Altucher show in which Ramit Sethi was a guest, they discussed something about having a rich life.
They described having a rich life, they said everybody can have their own definition of rich life. For example, one can say that for him to have a personal trainer to help maintain a healthy and fit body is a rich life, but for someone else having a personal chef who provides exquisite dishes for his particular taste is having rich life, and for some other person it might just mean financial independence so that he can enjoy his time with his family.
This description and examples they quoted we cannot fins on books or videos, this is the first-hand experience of these great gentlemen. And even if you find this information somewhere in a book, it can not generate the kind of emotional response listening James and Ramit talk about this topic generated. This is the unique selling point of podcasts. This is what separates them from the rest.
As described above podcasts can have a very deep impact on people’s lives, they can change the course of someone’s life or give general entertainment, or can be just informative. The most popular podcast in the recent history is the show called as Serial which is an investigative story about a murder. This show traced back the entire story of a murder and showcased that story on their podcast. This story gained so much attention on the social media, that the Govt. had to reopen the case and start the investigation again. This effectively changed the life of the murder suspect who has been behind bars for years. This show has given him hope and a chance to finally prove his innocence.
This is how podcasts and radio have affected the world over the years, maybe they will impact your life too someday or maybe not. But whether they do or not, you simply can’t ignore their importance. So why not give them a try, here is a list of my favorite podcasts:
1. Serial
2. Startup Podcast from Gimlet Media
3. Reply All from Gimlet Media
4. The James Altucher Show
5. a16z podcast
You can find these podcasts on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify or you can subscribe to their RSS feed and download on your device. All these shows have had a deep impact on me and hopefully, they will prove helpful to you too.
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