The Infinite Dial

Courtesy of Podcasting News comes this announcement that Podcasting community/platform Blubrry has seen its advertising revenues jump by 31% this past quarter. Todd Cochrane, the CEO of Blubrry and its parent company RawVoice, has been plugging away at monetizing podcasting since 2005, and has managed to survive and thrive, even as most of the early podcasting plays have long since faded.

Cochrane notes on his blog that quality - and quantity - have been the keys to their success, with over 5,500 shows available at Blubrry alone (they operate a few additional, smaller networks) for advertising placements. While he also is quick to talk about their multi-platform distribution strategy, it's that big number - 5,500 - that I want to point out here. That's not only a lot of raw inventory, it's also essentially a portfolio strategy, for you armchair investors out there. With a number like that, the chances are high that no matter what advertiser they call on, or what agency they talk to, they have a number of suitable podcasts to offer them in a package. Quantity does matter.

The lesson for broadcasters is pretty clear. You may not approach RawVoice's millions of avails for your own podcasting efforts, but in your local community your goal should not be to just podcast your morning show, but to create a portfolio of downloadable content - something for everyone - which you can use either for a reach buy or something more targeted. You may not have the resources in house to produce all that content, but hey - neither does RawVoice. You just have to provide a platform for interested folks in your community to add their own voices, with your station providing the hosting and acting as sales reps for the whole shebang. Some of your portfolio might be your original content, some of it might be recordings of local town council meetings, and some of it might be shows about local high school sports, local restaurants and local music - all the stuff that you might not put on the air but still engages passionate pockets of your audience.

Any one of these is a hobby. Put them all together? You got a business.

And, for my friends in commercial radio, there is no reason why you can't fill the role here of a public broadcaster. On the web, you have every bit as much of a right to leave deeper local footprints as anyone else, and with the amount of syndicated content on local public radio stations, perhaps more of an opportunity to get there. And for our public radio readers, offering targeted vehicles for underwriting and sponsorships opens up not only some creative ways to serve the community, but some creative revenue opportunities as well. The key, for both entities, is to learn from the success of RawVoice and don't think about home runs. Think about singles. Lots of them.