Adam Curry's Podshow Network is officially moving into the UK. Podshow has been operating in the US for a while now, and enjoying some decent popularity and a little bit of scandal. (For the record, there's nothing scandalous about Podshow's contract - just a bunch of naive people screaming about nothing).
Curry is the right guy to open up a podcast network in the UK. He probably spends more time over there than in the US these days and has a great deal of experience with the UK podcasting industry.Curry also has the money and the connections to strike deals with the big guys like British Telecom.
I had a blog entry pulled up here where a UK blogger was writing about how it seems that many British podcasters feel that Podshow is their ticket to becoming a full time podcaster. My browser choked on me and I lost the blog so I can't link to it, but I agree with the blogger. I don't know if these guys are paying attention to the rest of the world, but if the US can't produce many full time podcasters with 300 million potential listeners, I don't know why the brits would think their 60 million population has a chance.
Based on consistent survey results it seems the US takeup of new listeners is slowing and the UK (and Europe of course) is accellerating - we're a little behind.
The most worrying thing is that in the US it has been estimated there are only around 700,000 dedicated, regular podcast listeners - that's not much. Due to the compact nature of the UK geographically and with the saturation of media exposure, I actually think that figure could be exceeded in the UK once the awareness broadens. Right now podcast listeners are too repurposed BBC focused for podcasting's benefit, so Podshow's arrival, with BT prominence and money backing it up, might swing the whole thing a little more towards the independents.
There is as much bitterness about Podshow here as there is excitement, though right now the 'Podshow bashers' are oddly quiet - perhaps just in case they slam the door in Podshow's face before they get an offer to sign up ;)
It is a very different space over here and Podshow will need to do things differently to make a success of it, and from what I here it will be more than merely Podshow US with a few Brits in the front row - looks like it will be doing its own thing, with new ideas aimed at meeting the needs of the UK and EU markets.
One thing that's become clear to me in this podcast space, is that the US is not the leader. They may be so in terms of numbers, but most of the podcasters I speak to are not American. A very large proportion of them are Australian followed by UK podcasters and then finally Americans and Canadians.
I also get a sense of what you're speaking about in that podcasting is different in the UK than it is here. For better or worse, the BCC's adoption so early in the game really pushed podcasting into the mainstream in the UK and that has yet to really happen over here in Canada or in our neighbours to the south.
Based on consistent survey results it seems the US takeup of new listeners is slowing and the UK (and Europe of course) is accellerating - we're a little behind.
The most worrying thing is that in the US it has been estimated there are only around 700,000 dedicated, regular podcast listeners - that's not much. Due to the compact nature of the UK geographically and with the saturation of media exposure, I actually think that figure could be exceeded in the UK once the awareness broadens. Right now podcast listeners are too repurposed BBC focused for podcasting's benefit, so Podshow's arrival, with BT prominence and money backing it up, might swing the whole thing a little more towards the independents.
There is as much bitterness about Podshow here as there is excitement, though right now the 'Podshow bashers' are oddly quiet - perhaps just in case they slam the door in Podshow's face before they get an offer to sign up ;)
It is a very different space over here and Podshow will need to do things differently to make a success of it, and from what I here it will be more than merely Podshow US with a few Brits in the front row - looks like it will be doing its own thing, with new ideas aimed at meeting the needs of the UK and EU markets.
Posted by: neil | June 12, 2006 2:40 AM | Permalink to Comment