Podcasting Is Too Diverse To Regulate

Regulating podcasting would be practically impossible because the market is too diverse for tighter control, according to the chairman of Ofcom, Lord Currie, who was speaking at yesterday’s Cambridge Radio Festival.

Lord Currie was reacting to proposals by the European Commission that could lead to regulation of the podcasting market. Earlier this year, Ofcom expressed objections to European proposals to regulate video weblogs, and the chairman said yesterday that this also applied to the nature of podcasts, because of the complexity surrounding the number of sites that would have to be regulated.

The EU move comes as the Commission seeks to update the almost two decade-old ‘Television Without Frontiers Directive’ and includes, for the first time, rules to govern “non-linear audio-visual services”.

The future looked bright for the podcasting market at the Festival yesterday, as LBC revealed it has 4,700 subscriptions to its podcast, at £10 for six months, which include material the broadcaster says it would not be able to air on the station.

Music companies are tending to make 15% on podcast materials instead of the 3% for radio airplay, making the medium potentially very profitable in the future.

The BBC also revealed that 4.5 million podcasts were downloaded from the Corporation last month. It said that most people downloaded series not single episodes, with 80% of BBC podcasts downloaded via iTunes.

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk