Category: 7. Podcasting and Public Broadcasting in Canada

When you ask people about podcasting today, those who know what you’re talking about have likely heard about, or listed to, a major media podcast.  Most major media outlets in Canada “jumped on the podcasting bandwagon” in 2007.

Independent media outlets, however, recognized the potential of the medium much sooner: campus and community radio stations were among the earliest adopters, the Rabble Podcast Network launched in June 2005, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation posted its first podcast in March 2005.

Thanks to innovative thinkers like Tod Maffin and the late Krista Harris, who were employees of the CBC, content from Canada’s public broadcaster made an early appearance in the podcasting scene. 

It started with the Quirks and Quarks podcast, which debuted on March 8th, 2005.  Essentially there was no difference between the CBC broadcast of the show and the podcast that was posted three days later.  The only difference was the format.  Rather than having to tune-in at 12:06pm on Saturday to catch Bob MacDonald’s weekly look at the world of science and technology, listeners could subscribe to the show’s RSS feed and listen at their leisure.

In June, 2005, the CBC launched the Radio 3 podcast and the Metro Morning podcast.  The experiment had begun.

★  Tod Maffin talks about how the CBC got into podcasting:

★ The CBC’s Mandate as per the 1991 Broadcasting Act

A year later the CBC launched its full roster of podcasts, including many of its flagship radio programs plus a handful of regional podcasts.  All of the podcasts featured audio content that had previously aired the CBC’s tradional radio airwaves.  Podcasting simply gave avid listeners access to all their favorite CBC programs whenever they had time, wherever they were in the world.

Later on, the CBC added a of other podcasts, including ESL programming and book clubs, that were designed and distributed solely using the podcast format.

⇒  NEXT: “7.  Podcasting and Public Broadcasting in Canada”  →  CBC Radio 3 Podcast

CBC Radio 3 is much more than the “hip kid brother” of CBC Radio 1 and 2.  Known to fans as “the home of independent and emerging Canadian music,” CBC Radio 3 got its start in the late 1990’s and developed its innovative identity, sound, mandate and mode of transmission throughout the 2000’s.

First conceived as a fully-operational youth-focus radio channel, Radio 3’s early ambitions were cut short during the recession of 1990’s, so Radio 3 debuted as a few distinct radio programs which were aired Saturday and Sunday evenings on CBC Radio 2.

Fast-forward to spring 2005, Radio 3 was at a crossroads: the radio programs weren’t reaching their targets, the public didn’t know, or couldn’t figure out, what Radio 3 was, lay-offs were looming and the CBC lockout was on the horizon.  Radio 3 needed to make a bold move in a new direction or risk being cut entirely.

Enter Steve Pratt.

Joining the CBC in 2004 as Director of Radio 3 and CBC Radio Digital Programming, Pratt thought the sibling station would do a better job reaching its audience if it went online.  With previous experience working for MuchMusic, AOL Canada, CTV and YTV, Pratt knew that young Canadians weren’t tuning-in to traditional media platforms anymore.  They were turning to the world wide web instead.

★  Steve Pratt :

The CBC Radio 3 podcast launched on June 6th, 2005.  Within the first few weeks the podcast was doing very well, charting around 500 dowloads a day.

But all that changed when iTunes 4.9 launched two weeks later.  The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell wrote about Radio 3’s meteoric rise on July 22, 2005:

“Radio 3 had started its podcast of indie music a few weeks previous, and had been seeing about 500 downloads a day. That number flew up to 20,000 downloads when iTunes started promoting them, according to Radio 3’s director, Steve Pratt. The figure has since levelled out at more than 7,000 daily.” Radio 3 retained it’s #1 rating on ITunes Canada for an amazing … weeks, beating out Al Franken, sundry morning shows and the CBC’s own Quirks and Quarks podcast (which, incidentally, has turned out to be oddly popular in Scandinavia).”

– “Recasting Radio 3 for the iPod crowd,” July 22, 2005

The CBC Radio 3 Podcast reached its 1-millionth download within a year of its debut.  That number has since quadrupled.

The weekly podcast features host Grant Lawrence introducing audiences to an hour of the best in new Canadian music.  Lauded by fans and critics alike, Exclaim! magazine called it “Canada’s most important podcast” and Spin magazine called it “the top podcast in Canada.”

To date, over 200 CBC Radio 3 Podcasts have been produced.  Thanks to the success of Lawrence’s podcast, a handful other CBC Radio 3 podcasts have been added to to the Radio 3 roster.

In November 2008, Grant Lawrence spoke with me about the genesis of the Radio 3 Podcast, its global listenership, band recognition and more.

★  Listen to my entire conversation with Grant Lawrence: (39:51 mins)

☆ Bands signed to music labels thanks to the CBC Radio 3 podcast: Pride Tiger, The Hidden Cameras and Hey Rosetta!
☆ CBC Radio 3’s yearly “Top 3 Podcasts”: 1) The Best of 20**, 2) Sweatin’ to the Indies, 3) The Summer Road-Trip Podcast
☆
***Please Note: Quirks and Quarks was the CBC’s first podcast.  The CBC Radio 3 podcast was second.***

⇒ NEXT: “7. Podcasting and Public Broadcasting in Canada” → CBC Radio 3 Podcast

One of the greatest things about podcasting is that it can take you to places and tell you stories that you would never normally hear.

The CBC’s True North podcast, now called The North This Week, is a perfect example.

Canadians have long been fascinated with The North.  From Glen Gould to Atanarjuat, those of us living along the 49th parallel have sought ideas and stories about life beyond the tree line.  Most of us can’t imagine what the endless days of summer sunlight would be like, let alone the months of midnight at minus forty.

Hosted by Dave King and produced by Mardy Derby, the True North podcast followed the same regional format that was used by many CBC stations: a variety of the week’s best stories out of CBC Yukon, CBC NWT, CBC Nunavut and CBC North-Quebec were assembled into a neat little package and delivered to your computer via RSS.

The stories varied from polar bear encounters to ice road truckers to inuit facial tattoos, the True North podcast offers listeners around the world a remarkable glimpse of life north of 60°.

★  Dave King spoke with me about the True North podcast: (24:24 mins)

⇒ NEXT: “7. Podcasting and Public Broadcasting in Canada” →  Podcasting and Broadcasting

In the early days, technologists and futurists speculated whether or not podcasting would supplant traditional radio broadcasting.

Many had high hopes, including the CBC’s Tod Maffin.  In 2004 and 2005, Maffin wrote and was featured in a number of newspaper and magazine articles worldwide touting the potential of podcasting.

★  Maffin explains why he found podcasting so exciting:

When major media outlets and commercial enterprises started podcasting in 2005 and 2006, the idea that podcasting might overtake radio suddenly seemed plausible.  TSN started podcasting, The Toronto Star and Global Television, and all of them had a variety of different feeds by the end of 2006.

Podcasting has changed the way listeners consume media.  No longer held captive by the traditional distribution models, people began seeking and consuming more portable content.

★  Wayne MacPhail, from Rabble.ca, explains:

Although listeners may be changing the way they consume audio content, broadcasters and mainstream media haven’t changed the way they produce it as a result of podcasting.  Certainly newspapers ask their columnists to read their work aloud, but for the most part you’re hearing exactly what you would have otherwise read in the paper.  Most CBC podcasts are simply repackaged programming that has previously aired on the radio.

★ Tod Maffin talks about podcasting’s effect on broadcasting:

Some CBC podcasts like Spark and True North, are produced with the the podcasting audience in mind.  However, these podcasts aren’t representative of the majority of major media podcasts.

★  Dave King hosted the CBC’s True North podcast.  Here he discusses how the podcast affected the work environment in Whitehorse: 

Podcasting may not be changing traditional radio broadcasting, but there are still a number of things that broadcasters and podcasters can learn from each other.   At the 2008 Podcasters Across Borders conference in Kingston, ON, Nora Young and Dan Meisner, from CBC Radio’s Spark, presented a session entitled: “What Public Broadcasters Can Learn from Podcasters, and Vice-Versa.” They discussed sound quality, preparation, online tools and spontaneity.

★ Listen to Nora and Dan’s PAB 2008 session, “What Public Broadcasters Can Learn from Podcasters, and Vice-Versa,” on The Canadian Podcast Buffet.

*** Thanks to The Canadian Podcast Buffet for making the 2008 PAB content available.***

⇒ NEXT: “8. Podcasting and the CRTC” → Timeline of CRTC New Media Hearings