Citizen-casting--the democratization of media.

A few radio thoughts triggered by the Broadcasting and Cable article I just wrote about on the mother-blog, dehype...

It's no big thing now to shoot impressive video and edit it impressively. And, the computer has made "broadcast quality" audio and production systems freely available to anybody with the money, time and interest to fool with it. It's safe to say that radio production techniques aren't so complicated that nobody but radio guys can figure them out. It just takes practice. Talent, of course, is something else again, but the cost of entry is no longer a factor. As with paper and pencil before them, the tools of electronic media have passed into the hands of the great unwashed. Nothing will restore "professional" exclusivity.

The first station devoted to podcasting full-time is KYOURadio, SF. I don't see a Jack-like trend unfolding here--pod stations popping up in all the top 100 markets. No ratings success story, of course. Too pioneering for radio guys. Maybe, for the listeners, too. Radio listeners have had their radio creativity expectations genetically deleted by over thirty years of industry anal research-splicing. Now, they're doing their own radio shows-for-Ipod, with not a single thought wasted on the manipulation of Arbitron methodology. Some of them are even good. Cheers to Infinity for giving it a try. What did they have to lose with that Oakland AM? What else were they going to do on it, all-Dead? (Hmm, might work.)

Here's a thought: talk radio was supposed to be a great democratizing medium. But, of course, it was limited by the phone system, the 8-second delay, and, eventually, by Rush Limbaugh. Somewhere in the actual democratization of audio communications techniques, and the revolution in distribution--cellphones, software, podcasts, file transfer, wi-fi, and whatever's next--there's an idea or two waiting to be discovered by commercial radio. But you might have to take a risk, guys.