Why Big Media Will Dominate Podcasting

I probably should title this post, Why Big Media Is Dominating Podcasting, because I suspect that there are already more listeners of “big media” podcasts than there are of “little guy” podcasts.  I don’t have figures to back that up though so lets not worry too much about what the current state is and look to the future – will podcasting stay true to it’s roots and be a way for the “little guy” to have his say or will big media take over?

It’s actually not a simple yes/no question.  I’m fairly convinced that if podcasting isn’t just a fad that big media will wind up dominating it, but that doesn’t mean they will take over, just that they will be the most visible and have the majority of listeners.  The thing about podcasting is that you don’t need the support of others to do it, you just record some stuff, put it on a web server a voila, you’re a podcaster. The little guy can never be forced out of podcasting because she is in complete control of her distribution chain to the consumer.

Having said that, I think big media will dominate podcasting because it has better production capabilities, bigger advertising budget and enough money to handle the actual server load required to push out the content.  There’s still plenty of people who choose to listen to the radio despite the fact that they have an in-car CD player and access to as many podcasts as they might want.  There’s a reason indie music hasn’t taken over the world – it’s a niche market.  Believe it or not, some people actually like mainstream music – not just that they’re brainwashed or stupid – they actually like it.  In fact, mainstream music is mainstream because it captures the biggest audience share.

Podcasting will wind up adhering to the same distribution characteristics.  There will be a large mainstream group which big media will cater for and make a lot of money from, and there will be a long tail which a wide range of little guy’s will cater for and some of them will make some money from it. Some niches will be too small too make money off but people will cater for them as a hobby.  You know, it will work just like the music industry does today, with a mainstream group and a long tail of indie performers.  The difference will be that the ubiquity of the internet will make it easier to get to whatever market you’re going after so that more little niches along the long tail will be viable and more people will be able to access that hobbyist’s podcast about their favorite topic instead of wishing their was a podcast that they were actually interested in.

Of course as more people start podcasting the real challenge will be sorting the wheat from the chaff – that’s already difficult.