The innovative Denver Post has just launched daily podcasts as reported in this story. The Post has a team of audio journalists producing the podcasts. Access is free.
Daily podcasts are available for: ALL NEWS; LOCAL NEWS; NATION/WORLD NEWS; BUSINESS NEWS; SPORTS. There will be occasional features. The quality is good as are the production values.
On a broadband connection downloading all news takes less than a minute, load this on to a memory stick or direct to your iPod and you’re mobile with an audio newspaper from a respected news source. This is the kind of innovation Rupert Murdoch was talking about when speaking last month at the ASNE conference. This innovation will facilitate a greater connect with younger readers for the Denver Post.
So what is this? Denver Post is a newspaper. It has a good website. Now it’s in the audio business producing news programs for people on the move. Having the stories updated during the day and on a portable device will make listening to radio news redundant. So, the Denver Post is a newspaper, a website, an audio producer (think news radio station).
More important, the Denver Post move separates the stories from the package, from the newspaper. This is the kind of disaggregation I have been writing about here. It frees the stories. Whereas years ago the Denver Post was a newspaper, today it is a brand operating in several mediums.
Watch for more of this from mainstream media outlets across the globe. This story on Chris Chin’s blog at seattlepi.com (from the Seattle Post-Intelligencier) lists other newspapers offering podcasting. There is a challenge for radio and a challenge to their own newspaper product.
Thinking locally (in Australia) now, this move must be of concern to Australia’s 4,600 independently owned newsagents. We are a key part of the news and information supply chain. In the Denver Post model there is no supply chain to speak of. The publisher has a direct and easy connect with the consumer. If I were a publisher I’d do the same thing. We (newsagents) need to find our own relevance in the changing world. Publishers will put their needs ahead of ours in building future business models. We should not expect them to create models which support our businesses unless doing so is relevant to them.
One strategy crucial to our future is a deeper connect with our local community. This is why we are developing our citizen journalism project LocalNews Daily.