According to new forecasts from The Diffusion Group, a consumer technology research consultancy, demand for podcasts is expected to grow from less than 15% of portable digital music player owners in 2004 to 75% by 2010. While Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan said not too long ago he believes iPods are a bigger threat than satellite, lately the reaction from radio has been to joint the podcasting revolution than to try and "beat it," per se. Stations have begun podcasting everything from morning shows to comedy to talk programming. All that's needed is an RSS feed. To get audio feeds, users connect their MP3 player or iPod to their computer, go online, and subscribe to feeds they want the podcasting service to provide. Audio content is then pushed on a user-defined schedule from the original source to an aggregator like iTunes and then to the subscriber. Users program their podcast software (ie. PlayPod, iPodder and Doppler) with a list of shows they want to subscribe to. The software does the rest-from finding and downloading the shows onto a PC, to copying them into a library. There's no time limit, deadlines or government oversight of what's said. Most stations already have everything they need to implement a podcast: a website and audio editing software.

One company that recently began offering podcast gear to stations is Prophet Systems. Currently podcasts are created in "real time" recording the audio as it happens, and then creating an mp3, creating the RSS feed, and finally uploading them to a server. This can be time consuming, labor intensive, and if mistakes are made, the podcast would either have to be redone, or the user would need to creatively edit the podcast. The current tools available, for the most part are freeware, or shareware that are not professionally developed, somewhat difficult to use, and are not part of the normal workflow at a radio station. With Prophet's NexGen Pod Accelerator ("XLR8R"), any NexGen log can be used to create a podcast. This could be a future series of events, some from the past, or perhaps on a "Virtual Station", allowing users to do some experimental podcasts on non-terrestrial stations with the same ease afforded the terrestrial ones.

However, broadcasters have yet to strike a deal with all three music licensing orgs for the industry to truly be able to podcast music. So far negotiations are ongoing with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Says Ruth Seymour, KCRW-FM LA GM: "Music would be the magic touch for our station, but we're prohibited from not only podcasting music programs but from podcasting programs with music. They're just not ready to make a deal."

KCRW, in July was able to begin offering podcasts of live sessions performed by unsigned and independent artists on its signature music show, Morning Becomes Eclectic hosted by Nic Harcourt. Each Morning Becomes Eclectic live session podcast will be available for a two-week window. More live sessions will be added as they are available. The live, in-studio podcasts avoided licensing because the independent artist is still unsigned. However, with KCRW's iTunes exposure, the audience that would be exposed to the music via a podcast may be helping to change things.