With So Much Attention These Days on How Video Is Transforming the Web Let’s Not Forget Audio. The BBC Didn’t, Offered Five Beethoven Symphonies For Free and Logged More Than 650,000 Downloads. And Podcasting Is Growing Everywhere.

Philip Stone June 22, 2005

If ever there was an example of convergence between delivery platforms the BBC has shown how it can be done. In conjunction with broadcasting all of Beethoven’s symphonies on its domestic classical Radio 3, it also made the first five symphonies available free for downloading from its web site, and those downloads have already exceeded 650,000. It is making Symphonies 6 – 9 available after they are broadcast later this month.
Go To Follow Up & Comments

For the BBC these things are done a bit easier than for others. It has a very sophisticated online operation with a lot of resources – some commercial competitive publishers say too much resource – and its own philharmonic orchestra recorded the symphonies, taking care of such issues as rights.

It has been known since the days Napster first broke onto the Internet that there was a web market for the top 40 hits, but was that true for the classical music which, after all, usually appealed to the older generation? Even the BBC was surprised by the results.

Simon Nelson, the head of the BBC’s interactive radio and music services, said, “This trial was all about gauging listener’s appetite for downloads – and the results are astonishing.”

And it is not just veritable institutions like the BBC that is finding that audio has a home on the Internet. Many radio stations around the world have been streaming their output live for years, but now Podcasting has taken audio one step beyond.

Podcasting , a name taken from the Apple I-Pod, allows absolutely anybody who can afford some decent basic recording apparatus to publish audio files to the Internet as MP3 files. Where Podcasting differs from live streaming is that the Podcast is a file that can be played later on your MP3 player or your PC and the files can be burned as audio on CDs.

And the “big boys” are beginning to show a lot of interest. The BBC has already conducted some Podcast trials, ABC and NBC in the US have started to offer newscasts, Clear Channel Radio is working on a strategy to Podcast parts of its programming as MP3 files or as a RSS feed, and commercially support them with 15-seconcd ads, and Infinity Broadcasting has turned its San Francisco KYCY-AM into an all Podcast-programmed radio station and is looking at Podcasting some of its New York WINS output.

Podcasting is mostly verbal rather than musical to escape music rights issues, and that makes it just perfect for traditional print media wanting to establish its product onto other platforms.

For instance, such newspapers as the Washington Post, the Denver Post and Forbes Magazine are reading parts of their newspaper copy onto the web as mp3 files. Some are branching out somewhat and preparing special programs just for Podcasting.

What makes Podcasting attractive to traditional print media is that it is the young who seem to listen the most to Podcasts, partially perhaps because it is the young who mostly buy the I-Pod portable listening devices. What more could a traditional print product ask than to get its traditional product in front of the young who have given up reading the print edition?

The beauty of Podcasting is that it ties into what many forecasters are saying is becoming increasingly important in deciding how free time is used – time shifting. Instead of having to listen to a radio program live, just download the Podcast, or automatically receive the RSS file for playback at a convenient time.

The Diffusion Group, a consumer technology research consultancy, has issued a report that demand for timed-shifted Podcasts is expected to grow from less than 15% of current portable digital music player owners to 75% of such users by 2010 – some 60 million expected listeners.

And boosting Podcasting even more is a promise from Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, that version 4.9 of iTunes software expected by late July will have Podcasting support built in, including finding Podcasts and automatically tracking and downloading audio files.

“It’s going to basically take Podcasting mainstream to where anyone can do it,” Jobs told Apple’s major developer conference.

Most Podcasts currently have very limited audiences and next to no advertising. But with Apple building in Podcast capabilities to the I-Pod, and the media finding ways to use Podcasting to attract the young audience, it is one more example of how multiple platforms can be applied to get news and information to those who may not otherwise access it on traditional platforms.

ftm Follow Up & Comments

Parliamentary Committee Takes A Look at the BBC’s Beethoven Downloads – October 15, 2005

By the time the BBC’s two-week experiment in June had ended, an astonishing 1.4 million free downloads had occurred and record companies, not pleased with the BBC giving away what they are trying to sell, believe it would have taken at least five years for a commercial CD set to achieve the same results.

And since the BBC is anxious to launch new digital download services Parliament’s culture and media select committee wants to look into how those new services, including broadband video, might impact the competitive digital market.

In the same way that a commercial sale today of Beethoven’s complete symphonies would be difficult in a market where they have just been given away, digital vendors worry about future BBC projects, especially since they will be financed using the license fee.

The BBC has promised to consult with the industry as it introduces new products.

BBC Criticized By Classical Music Companies for Beethoven Downloads - July 11, 2005

Classical music labels are not happy that the BBC has made all nine Beethoven symphonies available for Internet download at no charge.

The more than 1 million free downloads will make retail sales of those symphonies much more difficult, according to classical music label executives. And if the BBC were to continue with further projects the labels said they could not compete because of their cost structure in paying rights and royalties to the orchestras concerned. The BBC used its own symphony orchestra for the recordings.

The BBC said it was surprised by the number of downloads, but in spite of the project’s popularity it says it has no plans at present for further download projects.

Breakthrough in Podcasting. Profit - July 3, 2005

Absolutely the best article I’ve read so far on podcasting appeared (July 3) in the New York Times, written by Randall Stross, a Silicon Valley historian and professor at San Jose State University. (jmh)

Excerpts:

"Podcast" is an ill-chosen portmanteau that manages to be a double misnomer. A podcast does not originate from an iPod. And it is not a broadcast sent out at a particular time for all who happen to receive it.

"It is nothing other than an audio or video file that can be created by anyone - add a microphone to your computer, and you're well on your way. The file begins its public life when you place it on a Web site, available for anyone to download to a computer and, from there, to transfer to a portable player, which may or may not be an iPod. It's encoded in such a way that the receiving computer can pick it up in successive installments automatically, whenever they are posted to the Web site. Subscribing is the term used for the automatic downloads, and it's apt.

"Last week, Apple trumpeted its support of podcasting with a technically misleading but undeniably catchy tag line: "Podcasting. The next generation of radio."

"At the same time, Audible (publisher of audio books) brought out its own print ad: "Audible.com announces a revolutionary breakthrough in podcasting. Profit."

Apple Releases New iPod Software That Supports Podcasting - June 30, 2005

A month earlier than scheduled Apple has released its version 4.9 of iTunes software that supports Podcasting.

The software allows users to subscribe to more than 3,000 Podcasts with each new episode automatically delivered via the Internet to a computer or iPod.