Podcasting Hacks

Syndicate Your Podcasts to the Radio

Using the PRX service, you can play your podcasts on National Public Radio (NPR).

The revolution is not yet complete, and in fact it doesn’t necessarily ever have to be. Commercial radio might have started to sound stale through relentless consolidation, but public radio in America makes a point to look for new voices and innovative ways of producing audio. A motivated pod-caster can contribute a lot to the community of listeners around a local public radio station, and there’s a lot—production tricks, a community of producers—that the station can give back.

And think of the exposure you’d get for your podcast by broadcasting just a single audio segment on a national program. More than 113 million Americans still drive to work, and there’s still an FM radio in every car.

How do you do this? You can start at the Public Radio Exchange (http://prx.org/). PRX is a web-based marketplace for public radio work. Independent audio producers use PRX to make high-quality audio features and documentaries available—through standardized licensing terms—to public radio stations. In return, the stations, when they choose to air your work, pay a royalty back out to you through PRX.

Benjamen Walker, a public radio producer (who used to be a comic-book artist), began podcasting his experimental weekly half-hour audio show, The Theory of Everything (http://toeradio.org), in September 2004. In April 2005, he was looking at 7,500 downloads a week, but also was reaching ...