Infidelity

I have a confession to make. I haven’t been faithful. For the past few months I’ve had a mistress. Her name?

Podcasting.

Yes dear blog reader, I’ve been cheating on you with the sexy new hottie in town. I couldn’t resist the curves of iTunes and the instant gratification she has given me. This isn’t a fling, I’m in love.

For those of you unaware, I used to be in radio. My degree is actually in Communications with a Broadcast Journalism emphasis. I loved being on the air, I loved creating commercials, I loved programming music.

I got out of radio at the time simply because it didn’t pay well, and you really had zero job security. At any moment your station could switch formats and leave you in the cold. It was a hard decision, because even though it didn’t pay well, I couldn’t think of a much better job than listening to music and talking to people.

In the 10 years since I finished college (and my radio career) I’ve watched and listened as radio has gotten more and more watered down. More homogenized. I’ve also watched this media distort news stories in ways that truly made me sick. I came to despise the very medium I loved.

Then a couple of things happened. MP3’s and Satellite Radio. First, the MP3 revolution meant that you could literally find most any song you wanted, and get it easily. You could carry thousands of songs with you at any time. It was marvelous. No more having to listen to the same pop songs over and over. The industry could no longer direct the latest trends. Music became more diverse again, and I could find new music that radio would never deliver to me…until, that is, it got beamed from a satellite.

I LOVE satellite radio. I signed up for XM nearly since its inception, and recently switched to Sirius (mainly for the NFL games.) I have been thrilled with both. Hundreds of commercial-free music channels, with incredible diversity, irreverance, and disc jockies that truly love what they’re doing. Radio is fun again. It’s innovative again. Terrestrial radio can die for all I care…

So now, you have satellite radio and MP3’s. These have reinvigorated music. They replace normal radio. They replace MTV. But there was still a void in talk radio. Sure, you could listen to Howard or a few others, but that was it. It was hard to find niche programming, or even find programs when YOU had time to listen. Thus enters podcasting.

Podcasting is simply recording a radio show into a format (like MP3 or AAC) that can be transferred to your computer or portable music player. They are easy and cheap to produce. So now you can find shows on thousands of topics that you can time-shift to fit your schedule. Radio no longer has a grip on talk. And I love it.

You see, I have around a 60 minute train ride each way every work day. Nearly two hours a day I spend sitting in a train car. Two hours when I can listen to music and podcasts. And I do.

I subscribe to Coverville (a show featuring cover songs) the Daily Source Code (Adam Curry, the father of podcasting’s show) the Dawn and Drew Show (two hilarious punk-geeks from Wisconsin who sound very much like friends of mine in college,) Dolphins on the Run (a Miami Herald weekly show talking about everything Miami Dolphins) and This Week in Tech, or TWiT (the show with former Tech TV pundits talking everything tech.)

So, every day, at any time on the train, I can be entertained, when and HOW I want to. My iPod can give me music, sports, tech, humor and news. I am no longer bound by traditional radio, period. It’s a great feeling. I love this stuff again, and I miss it.

So dear readers, this is why I haven’t been blogging as much. Most of that two hours a day on the train used to be devoted to blogging (or sleep.) Now, it’s been devoted to listening to podcasts. I make no apologies. I love it.

So this leads me to the fact that I may indeed join the podcasting ranks some day. That itch to listen to music and talk to people hasn’t gone away. Someday soon, I just may scratch it.

Stay tuned.

Technorati Tag: Podcasts