Steve Rubel passes along this tidbit:
Z100 – a popular Top 40 station in New York – has debuted some podcasts. To my knowledge, they’re one of the few Top 40 stations that have done so. They may even be the first. What’s unique is that they include interviews with big stars like Kelly Clarkson and J-Lo.
Why should I care what some Clear Channel station in New York is doing? Why should anyone do a damned thing to promote a sleazy corporation that is doing its best to concentrate media in this country and discourage diversity? Kelly Clarkson is raw material for the pop culture sausage machine. Same for J-Lo. In a world where there are literally thousands of artists who are doing great new stuff that isn’t controlled by the RIAA or Clear Channel, why should I download a commercial-filled 20 minutes of pabulum from these guys and play it on my iPod?
Steve’s instincts are normally good, but this “news” is laughable.
(PS: If you go to Z100’s Web site, be sure to check out the banner full of sleazy ads at the very top of the page. Low mortgages rates? Bad credit refinance! Online dating! It’s like they dumped a whole mailbox full of spam into a single banner. Nice respect for your audience, Clear Channel.)
Update: Just to clarify, I think Steve Rubel is smart, well informed, and a great commentator on developments in the blogosphere. That’s why his blog is in my RSS reader. I just don’t share his positive outlook about Clear Channel. See the comments for more.
Ed Bott 
Why should you care? Because it shows how quickly the technology was adopted. Because it shows (from Steve’s POV) how a major corporation is using a new technology to promote themselves – and since Steve is a PR guy who works with big companies – it’s totally appropriate for him to blog about. So why should you care? You don’t have to. But don’t take Steve to task for blogging about something that clearly relates directly to the mission of his blog.
As for the story itself – it’s very smart of a large company to use podcasts to promote their station. They get their name in listeners’ iPods – potentially listeners who might not be listening to the station as much BECAUSE of having an iPod. This increases top of mind awareness of the station – everytime they go to their list of playlists – there’s Z-100 right there! It could potentially help their ratings, and it sure isn’t going to hurt anything. Not only that – but it’s probably get to get some folks interested in podcasts who might not ordinarily be interested. They’ll download iPodder, subscribe to the Z-100 podcasts – see the directory and maybe get curious. Podcasting wins, no one loses.
Ok we get that you don’t like or don’t give a crap about Clear Channel – fine. But don’t pin that on Steve.
–*Rob
Fair enough. I would have liked to have seen some commentary, though, on how this “mainstream media” company is threatened by the spread of podcasting, and how they would probably like nothing better than to wipe out the podcasting community, which threatens the Clear Channel monopoly.
You can bet that CC isn’t doing this because they love their audience or are trying to do them a great service.
Given CC’s proven track record, I think you’re way too optimistic to say “podcasting wins, no one loses.”
Rob’s right, Ed.
It doesn’t matter when techies & music snobs pick up on something like podcasting. It matters when the masses do, because that’s when lives & society really change.
Your tastes may be oh-so-eclectic & “‘leet,” but it’s pablum the masses crave. If it’s J.Lo that bring the masses to advanced technologies like podcasting, so be it.
I don’t think they are doing it just “for their listeners” – but the benefit they have to gain is the increased awareness of the radio station by having it in the listener’s iPod. Podcasting doesn’t lose from that. The savvy techie podcasters and podcast listeners aren’t affected in any way, just as a blogger like yourself isn’t affected in any way by a blog about J. Lo.
Everyone wants to speak of the domination of Big Media, and how when Big MEdia gets involved – the little guys lose. But it’s actually the opposite in the case of podcasting and blogs. Everyone has been winning so far. Blogs from MSNBC columnists sure ain’t having any effect on my little everyday blog.
The playing field is balanced. I can listen to Z-100 and Dawn and Drew just the same in my iPod. All the better – I get very different worldviews from the same device.
–*Rob
Muzak on the IPOD.
I don’t see that there is any loser with this. Obviously Cheap Channel smells advertising revenue.
We’ve lost radio as a cultural medium. CC and Infinity have seen to that (or should I say the FCC has seen to that)?
With radio, in my neck of the woods, you simply can’t find a station that is not playing a tightly programmed playlist. You can only fit a FM station every 200khz, between roughly 88 and 108 Mhz. With the Internet all you need is a domain name, or even a page within a domain. You don’t need an FCC license, powerful transmitter and scads of cash, just a server and some bandwidth (i.e., smaller scads of cash).
I don’t see it as any different from when I was a kid, listening to AM top-40 radio in Denver. Same sh*t, different container.