Big station, small station, or independent producer -- all the momentum in new media is moving away from appointment listening and toward listener choice in the method and timing of media consumption. As a consequence, most stations in the business of providing audio online are, or soon will be, podcasting.

First, the good news: It is a fairly simple and inexpensive technology. Affordable tools can put even a small station into the business in short order. The very first day I looked into the possibilities, I found everything I needed to begin podcasting immediately, and for an outlay of less than $100 -- sweet. So it may seem strange when I say that many months later, my station has yet to launch a podcast.

We found that there were some things we had to do first, both to integrate podcasting into our media mix in a way that would give the most value to our audience for the least amount of cursing and hair-pulling on the part of staff, and to provide the service in a way that was consistent with our public broadcasting mission.

Some considerations:
Staff time: The quick and easy podcasting tools involve extra labor. They are stand-alone tools that don't integrate automatically with content management systems. Someone would have to create the podcast feed each day -- an hour or more of extra labor, we estimated. With most stations, including ours, having only one person dedicated to online, this was a substantial commitment.

Audio quality: The station laid the groundwork to begin podcasting earlier in the year by switching its audio archive format from RealAudio to mp3. But the bit rate of our archive format, 24 kbps mono, was too low to produce sound quality acceptable to the higher expectations of the podcast audience. Even for spoken-word programming, we found that 48 kbps mono was the lowest we could go.

Working it through:
Staff time: We decided it was worth the time to modify our homegrown content management system, Public Media Manager, to generate a daily podcast feed of the stories entered into our archive. The upfront labor would pay off in the long run, and the new capability could be included in the version of the software we offer other stations. The system already generated an RSS feed of the stories we wanted to deliver; it just needed to be upgraded to include the elements that would deliver enclosed audio. The way forward looked simple, but issues arising from increasing audio quality introduced substantial complications.

Audio quality vs. access: Since it began providing online audio, our station has maintained a commitment to serve the needs of dial-up listeners. We serve a rural area where broadband penetration is low, and even dial-up service is spotty in the most remote regions. Increasing the bit rate of our audio would put it beyond the reach of dial-up streaming. Abandoning one portion of our audience to serve another seemed like a poor choice.

One option would have been to encode audio at multiple rates, one for broadband/podcast, one for dial-up. This would have involved further modifications to Public Media Manager and an added task in the posting process. Or we could have offered dial-up users alternative ways to get equivalent service, introduce free audio transcripts, or add a download button to each story so dial-up users could receive the larger audio files -- eventually. All the possibilities involved further investments of time and money.

We decided that some investment was warranted. Increasing the quality of our audio had value beyond the issue of podcasting. As broadband penetration continues to increase, the usefulness of a low-quality archive will decline. Likewise, free transcripts have a wider value. In addition to serving a poorly connected audience, transcripts serve the hearing-impaired, those who prefer to consume information in print form, and those who work or live in environments where audio is inappropriate. In addition, transcripts vastly increase the visibility of our news and programs to search engines, which primarily search text.

Rolling it out:
We decided the best course for us was to upgrade audio quality without continuing the low bit rate alternative, and to pursue both free transcripts and direct downloading of media as a way to serve our dial-up audience and to woo new constituencies. And we decided to put these changes in place before launching the podcast service.

To recoup expenses involved in sustaining the new service, the podcast subscription page will include a print underwriting spot, and the podcast itself will include an audio underwriting spot. To support transcription services, each transcript will include an underwriting message, and foundation support will be sought from organizations involved in accessibility issues.

NCPR plans to launch its podcast service before the end of the year.

Dale Hobson is web manager at North Country Public Radio. E-mail him at dhobson@stlawu.edu.