iTunes delivers big traffic numbers to podcasters

Playlist Mag ^ | 07/01/2005 | Mathew Honan

[Panerai]

With over one million subscriptions in the first 48 hours, iTunes 4.9 has already proved it’s the new heavy-hitter in the league. And all those subscribers have translated into a massive surge in traffic for podcasters.

Los Angeles area public radio station KCRW has been podcasting 22 of its shows since March, and was already experiencing rapid growth. KCRW started the month of June with 75,000 downloads per week. That number had already increased to 108,000 in the week before the iTunes 4.9 launch. But following the release, KCRW reported a “tenfold” increase in traffic.

“With the launch of iTunes 4.9 on Tuesday, podcasts of KCRW programs increased tenfold, from a previous daily average of 10,000 to 100,000. In fact,” says KCRW Management Consultant, Will Lewis, “Our webmaster had to switch us over to a much bigger server because of the stratospheric increase in traffic.”

Across the coast, New York public radio station and podcaster WNYC was reporting similar growth.

“It’s been very dramatic. We have four shows up, and for one show alone [On the Media] we had a 185 percent increase within a day,” WNYC spokesperson Jennifer Houlihan told Playlist. “That’s just for the first day. I’m sure it’s increased since then as well.”

[Panerai]

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[martin_fierro]

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[My2Cents]

I updated to iTunes 4.9 this week, and found that most of the podcasts were listed, but weren't available for downloading. Am I doing something wrong, or did they launch this thing before everything was available?

[Panerai]

Try again, that's possible. As far as content, I am not impressed so far, but they just got started - so 1 or 2 months down the line let's see what they will have. Wish there was Dennis Miller podcast/rant.

[CFC__VRWC]

I browsed Apple's podcast lists myself and saw lots of leftist programming and almost no conservative podcasts. Of course you can subscribe to them by going to the individual web sites, but it would be nice if iTunes would offer some conservative podcasts.

[My2Cents]

Yeah, most of their talkshow options (so far) aren't anything I want to listen to. Lot of Err America programming, and amateur programs by guys recording their stuff in their living rooms.

Re: Dennis Miller. I was sorry to see that CNBC cancelled his cable program. I thought it was one of the better current affairs programs on cable, but apparently I was the only one.

[Panerai]

That's the first thing I noticed to my dissapointment. But, I think that Air America can give away their stuff for free, when no one's listening that's easy. A successful show like Rush, I don't think it's going to make stuff available for free.

[CFC__VRWC]

True - Rush requires a 24/7 subscription to get his podcasts.

[Swordmaker]

Re: His Master's Voice

Are you implying the existance of an RCA iPod.

[martin_fierro]

WTF is RCA?

< |:)~

[flyingspacemonkey]

The IMAO podcast is conservative and is on Itunes. Take a listen let me know what you think. It's from the bloggers at IMAO.US

[InterceptPoint]

I browsed Apple's podcast lists myself and saw lots of leftist programming and almost no conservative podcasts.

I posted a warning to Freepers on this subject a few days ago in another podcast thread. This is one of those rare cases where The Left has got a big head start on us. It's early in the game but it is time for Rush and Sean and the others to forget about making an extra buck on this and just give it away for free. The commercials will be heard by more people and so the business model should be OK in the long run. With more listeners/downloaders they can charge higher rates. Get on with it guys.

BTW, the C in KCRW must stand for Communist. These guys are the far far left - pure Marxism.