Easy listening: 2016: The Year the Podcast Came of Age
When Jamie Mo
rton discovered that his 60-year-old father had written an erotic novel called “Belinda Blinked”, he was appalled. A few weeks later, when reading passages of the book aloud to two university friends over dinner, Mr Morton saw the funny side — and a creative opportunity. “It was so bad,” Mr Morton says, “it was gold.”
The three decided to record their reactions to Belinda’s not-particularly-erotic escapades and the author’s idiosyncratic syntax. “My Dad Wrote A Porno”, a 13-part podcast and surprise hit, was born. The choice of medium was significant. Podcasts, series of digital audio files that users can download or stream from MP3 players and computers, were first created in 2001.
This was also the year that Apple launched the iPod, the device from which podcasting takes its name. Although it is now, in tech terms, a doughty 15 years old, it has developed only fitfully. While some veteran shows, including “This American Life”, “RadioLab” and “How Stuff Works”, have been broadcast regularly since their launches in the middle of the decade, many more withered away to nothing as quickly as they had sprung up.
Source: The Economist