There is more to podcasts than YouTube video interviews

5 December 2024

The Australian Podcast Awards were held a few weeks ago in Sydney, on Thursday, 21 November 2024. The finalists and winners, with productions spanning thirty categories, can be see here.

Podcasting is to broadcasting, what blogging is to publishing. It allows an individual, or a small group of people, to create their own radio-style show, independent of regular broadcast channels. Like blogging, anyone can jump in and give it a try. To start a basic podcast show, all that’s needed is a small amount of equipment and software, and a whole heap of determination to build up profile.

Though you wouldn’t think it from looking at the numerous finalists and winners in this year’s Australian Podcast Awards, podcasting is under threat. The medium itself isn’t in strife however, as Dave Winer writes, it’s more about what the word podcasting seems to have come to mean:

We’re losing the word “podcast” very quickly. It’s coming to mean video interviews on YouTube mostly. Our only hope is upgrading the open platform in a way that stimulates the imagination of creators, and there’s no time to waste.