Podcasting has been around for a few years now, but in the last 12 months we have seen a massive leap in terms of understanding and in the quality/volume of content available from media owners and independent producers alike… podcasting was even recognised by the Sony Radio Awards 2009.
A year ago, we had a couple of podcasts which did very well in the smaller market, however Absolute Radio can now boast several other massive achievements which have helped us to cement our place as one of the UK’s pioneering podcast producers.
We’ve delivered more than 4 million podcasts to listeners in 12 months and we had our best week ever last week, delivering more than 170 thousand downloads. This comes hot on the heels of our first ever iTunes number 1 podcast with Dave Gorman… the good news is we can now look forward to a weekly Dave podcast.
Podcasts of our programmes have accounted for 72% of our total, but that’s just the start of the story.
We have begun to go back through the Golden Square archives to offer listeners the chance to enjoy again some of the classic interviews we’ve done over the years. We’re also adding material as the acts make return visits. Creating channels for acts like Coldplay and Stereophonics allows fans of specific music/comedy acts to download the free podcasts when they search for other content within the iTunes store. As you can imagine, this is great for raising awareness of Absolute Radio amongst non-listeners.
In the last year everyone’s worked hard on our video offering. As well as filming videos for our website and YouTube, we now also upload them to iTunes for people to enjoy there – another great platform for us. More than half a million videos have been watched via iTunes. Video interviews with Florence and the Machine and Ricky Gervais have proved immensely popular in recent weeks.
So, with 100 different podcasts streams, we had to look at improving the way people could access the podcasts. Over the last few weeks we’ve been working with iTunes to allow us to display our podcasts/apps in a more efficient and engaging way which actually mirrors the iTunes store as a whole.
It looks a bit like this:
We’re one of only a few providers around the world to have this opportunity and the only one in the UK. When you click on ‘Absolute radio’ via the podcast homepage, you’ll be able to search and see podcasts within our own categories, link to our applications and even related websites. We’re delighted to be able to do this and it dramatically enhances the iTunes experience we can offer – after all, it’s the place we know that most podcast users choose to source their material from.
So, the world of podcasting continues to develop into a highly competitive marketplace and one where we have to innovate to be noticed and succeed. We also have to continue to look at the commercial opportunities podcasting offers. Our podcasts have been sponsored by COI, Audible and Thresher and this has helped them to reach new audiences, we are now moving forward to offer further opportunities for clients to benefit from this growing audience.




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