Is podcasting the medium or the message

The think about KYOU radio got me started thinking on this and I think that both KYOU and an "all podcast radio show" were slipped in here from the planet of Don't Get It.

For me, podcasts are about two things:

1. Enormous variety of content.  I get scholarly lectures from the BBC, music from the Caribean, blues from three different continents, geek stuff from all over and a ton of other stuff.  There never could be a radio station like this because it's personalized to my tastes.
2. Listening on my schedule.  I listen on my commute, I listen at work to drown out inconsiderate neighbors who do teleconferences via speakerphone, I listen in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.  When I turn the player back on I haven't missed a beat or syllable. 

I guess there are people who think that "a podcast" is a particular format of "show" such as what Adam Curry does.  A little rambling pointless talk, a few songs, some words and references that wouldn't be allowed on commercial radio.  I disagree, frankly.

In my opinion, podcasting is the medium.  I'm not sure I'm being very clear here. Podcasting is the channel, not the content.  What makes a podcast is the "touch free" delivery from the producer all the way to my player, more or less with no intervention.

So the whole idea of playing podcasts on the radio is a total non sequitur.  If you play it on the radio, it's a radio program, not a podcast.  Some of the programs I get via podcast originated as radio shows.  But to me they're podcasts because I get them via a podcatcher, not a radio.

Xeni Jardin: Last Friday, Adam Curry kicked off his new all-podcast radio show with Sirius -- 4 hours each weekday, hand-picked selects from the pod-o-sphere. Here's a Q&A I filed for Wired News with Curry from his home in Guilford, UK.

WN: The audio on your new radio show will be donated by listeners. What kind of material do you expect?

Curry: People will be submitting podcasts, promos for podcasts you can find online, podsafe music, mashups, sound-seeing tours, maybe narrating a walk down the street in their neighborhood. These are things we haven't heard on radio for the past 20 to 30 years. Using the theater of the mind, using sound as art -- this is something we've forgotten how to do in radio.

WN: Tell me about the very last podcast you created. What was in there?

Curry: I just uploaded one today (.mp3). I talked about the Dutch Marines who stopped by my house last night.

I talked about the Sirius show, and about an audio trivia quiz that Jan Polet does. He selects three songs, and you have to identify who sings them. I suck at it, but I love that there are people out there sitting on subways, with their headphones on, screaming, "That's the Doobie Brothers!"

Link to Wired News interview.

Previously: Xeni Tech on NPR: Pod People invade radio

An audience with the Podfather