People Like A Bit Of Theater, Free And Easy

Michael Hedges February 2, 2015 Follow on Twitter

At first it was confusing, with many in the media realm eager to dismiss. Then there was the grasping and gasping phase; the new and different always attracts the curious and repels those with better things to do. Eventually there is a point at which the folks just do what they like. The digital world moves in evermore mysterious ways.

By mid-January the podcast called Serial had been downloaded 54 million times worldwide, toping the charts, as we say. The 12 episode audio-only, online-only part investigation, part murder mystery series disrupted a lot of thinking about what people will do with their media time. Some observers say Serial is a "renaissance" for the podcast, first appearing a decade ago.

Serial was developed by Sarah Koenig and other producers from acclaimed US public radio program This American Life of Chicago public radio station WBEZ. The story is true; a young women murdered in 1999, boyfriend arrested, mistrial declared, conviction in second trial, sentenced to life in prison, continued claim of innocence. Psychopathology, dubious witnesses, romantic conflict, racism and legal representation issues were researched and presented. "We won't know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us," says the preface on the show's website.

Production of each chapter was minimalist, original theme music being the major compliment. Week to week running times varied from 40 to 50 minutes. It was released each Thursday to iTunes and other podcast portals starting mid-October last. WBEZ paid reporters and producers salaries for a year with a little additional funding from US email marketing service MailChimp, which took a 20 second sponsor message, typical for US public radio, at the head. MailChimp reported decent results: several thousand new sign-ups.

"We're starting a new show. We've never done this before," said This American Life producer and host Ira Glass in July. "It'll be a weekly podcast, not a radio show at all. We're starting with a crime story, that'll run for about a dozen episodes. Our hope is that it'll play like a great HBO or Netflix series, where you get caught up with the characters and the thing unfolds week after week, but with a true story, and no pictures. Like House of Cards, but you can enjoy it while you're driving."

Since time immemorial, in every culture, storytelling has informed, educated and entertained. True-crime thrillers have long been popular in novels, film and television. Radio has had its share of audio masterpieces, Orsen Welles 1938 dramatic adaptation of HG Wells dystopian novel War Of The Worlds noted, and radio broadcasters have long repeated comedian Steve Allen's accolade: "Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless."

The podcast has been around for a bit more than ten years, the name referring to the Apple iPod portable media player introduced in 2001. Audio books, stories and the like had been available in analogue modes two decades before that. The podcast and podcasting drew attention in this century's early years as having huge potential for being disruptive, without which "we'd still be pumping gas into bulbs for light," said former Radio Netherlands Worldwide creative director and podcasting evangelist Jonathan Marks at a 2006 European Broadcasting Union (EBU) workshop on digital media. More prescient to the viral success of Serial, at the same meeting he informed the public broadcasters that audiences don't really want to interact with show hosts and producers. "They want to interact with their friends‚" using the program or feature as context.

In 2006 the iTunes catalogue showed about ten thousand available podcasts. Early adventurers into podcasting saw opportunity with a very low entry barriers. Following the excitement for blogs and ahead of the social media craze podcasting, largely, became a domain for sellers of stuff. Broadcasters, public and commercial, saw potential in catch-up radio. Publishers put reporters and editors around a microphone in a spare room to discuss news of the day. Slowly but surly podcasting has come into its own. Today the iTunes catalogue shows about a quarter of a million.

"I still remember the days of hunting down an RSS feed, copying it and pasting it into iTunes, downloading the podcast to my computer and then syncing it to my iPod to listen to later," said Edison Research VP and another podcasting evangelist Tom Webster to a US radio broadcasting conference last September. "Today, all that friction has been reduced to just one step, thanks to the convergence of broadband access, computing and media server that is the modern mobile phone." A "share of ear" study by Edison Research of US listeners released in conjunction showed podcast listeners spending more time with podcasts than any other audio content.

Outside the US, reaction by media observers and broadcasters to Serial and podcasts in general shows continued belief in media in transition. "I think the podcast is much more widespread than the industry itself is aware of," said Danish news-talk station Radio23Syv program manager Mads Brögger, quoted by Politiken (January 2). "The other day I met a women who is a cleaning assistant. She didn't seem like much of an early adopter. She thanked me warmly for our morning debate program. But how do you have time to listen, after all you are at work, I asked. I podcast them, she replied as if it was the most natural in the world. Then I thought that if we have hold of her then the time of the podcast is really getting here."

"Serial has opened doors even in South Africa and there's huge potential," said journalist and podcaster Jonathan Ancer to Daily Maverick (January 30). "I think sponsors and advertisers will come to the party if the product is right. Media houses don't seem to have much of an appetite for podcasts at the moment, but I think they will eventually get with the platform."

"A friend who happens to be a sound engineer pointed me to This American Life, Great Lives and Radio Lab and I started listening to podcasts," explained Mr. Ancer, who created the Extraordinary Lives podcast hosted by Mail & Guardian. "I have no interest in what 'Rob from Rondebosch' thinks and I find (local radio) presenters shallow and smug. You can't read and drive, you can't watch a video and drive but you can listen and drive and now I could listen to what I chose to listen to and when I wanted to."

Some, naturally, ask about the business model. "It's an interesting product because it assumes program affinity," said media buyer Havas Media France radio director Jean-Pierre Cassaing to Les Echos (December 23, 2014). Other than that, interest in France is marginal. Audience research institute Médiamétrie stopped measuring time spent with podcasts under pressure from big national broadcasters more interested in monitizing streaming audio services.

Several basics are evident in the wild popularity of Serial first 12 episodes. It was - and still is - free to download. The miracles of mobile technology made it easy to access. It was a good story well told. Listeners wanted to interact around it. Perhaps this podcasting triumph is simply an example of the digital means meeting the digital audience.

Since the December finish of Serial's run, Sarah Koenig has been touring universities and other sympathetic venues as podcasting biggest star. She'll be keynoting the Podcast Movement assembly in Ft. Worth, Texas in August. And, yes, Serial will return for a second season in the fall, supported in that very new media way, crowdfunding. Next season's theme hasn't been determined, she's said, but it will likely not be a crime story.

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