Podcast Connects Radio Duo Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire Directly to Audience
Freedom from the dictates of a programme director and general manager as well as technical glitches caused by a radio transmitter is how American radio partners Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire see their shift to podcasting.
The duo, set to begin The Brad & Britt Podcast on Monday, June 7, said their change is caused by frustration over the state of talk radio, reported News & Record.
Krantz explained that their WBT show had good ratings, but the station stopped its support after it received some complaint calls from legacy listeners.
"We are entertaining. We are funny. But we are not right-wing, and in the insane world of radio, if you are not a right-winger, then you are a Socialist, Marxist Commie," he lamented.
Krantz added, "Right now, talk radio is a right-wing sewer. We refuse to swim in the sewer, therefore we pay the price."
So when their 2-year contract with WBT-AM (1110) in Charlotte ended on Wednesday, June 2, the pair decided to move to the Internet.
On their first year of broadcast with WBT, Brad and Britt were heard in the afternoon drive time, but on their second year, the two were shifted to early evenings. Prior to WBT, the paid had a talk show for eight years on WZTK-FM (101.1), which covered the Triad and Triangle.
Krantz was the morning show host on WKRR-FM (92.3) and was well known in Greensboro in the mid-1980s, while Whitmire was co-host of Murphy in the Morning with Jack Murphy on WKZL-FM (107.5).
The podcast, derived from the words broadcast and pod from the success of the iPod, is one of the new methods of audio broadcasting that is the result of technology.
Podcasting is considered a converged medium that brings together audio, the Web and portable media player.
Besides giving podcasters freedom from the dictates of traditional radio stations, podcasting could also be a profitable financial venture. Forbes reported that John Lee Dumas, the founder of Entrepreneur On Fire show on iTunes, makes great money from podcasting.
In 2013, he grossed $446,000 and achieve his first month of $100,000 net revenue in December that year. Entrepreneur on Fire was downloaded 7.4 million times in 2013 and logged 829,000 unique listens in June. The daily audio-only podcast, produced by Dumas with the help of three full-time virtual assistants in Asia, has subscribers in 145 countries.
With the bulk of the pre-recorded show done only once a week when Dumas records 7 to 8 weekly shows, Dumas and his girlfriend, Kate Erickson, were able to fulfill their dream of going on an extended vacation to Paris, Prague and Barcelona while the programme automatically aired daily at 3 am.
Besides the podcast, another audio technology available for broadcasters is a delivery platform from Audioboom Group PLC (LSE: BOOM.L).
Audioboom, which offers a Software as a Service platform that allows straightforward upload or download of content, has positioned itself as the global leader in spoken audio content, or the audio equivalent of the YouTube, the most popular video sharing site.
The London-based publicly listed company is the provider of social media platform for audio producers to record either live or from the studio, upload and share audio by syndication and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
At present, Audioboom has about 2,000 content channels from the initial 19 channels during the platform's launch in March 2013, said Rob Proctor, company CEO. Audioboom currently has 2.5 million registered users and 12 to13 million monthly active users across platforms.
Audioboom's global major partners, which uses its apps, embeds and custom publisher solutions, include BBC, Sky Sports, Bauer, Absolute Radio, The Guardian, Universal, Aljazeera, Polydor, The Telegraph and Oxfam.
New technologies like the podcast and Software as a Service platform only show that there are a growing number of high-tech options available for broadcasters who want to reach their audience, sans the control typically found in traditional radio stations.
