The first sentence of HD Radio chapter in “The State of the News Media“, an annual review prepared on the media in the USA by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism says it all.

According to the report:

• Only 2,012 of the nation’s 14,417 AM and FM stations broadcast HD signals
• Only about one half of these use HD to broadcast more than one simultaneous program (multicast)
• Only 184 stations added HD capability to their broadcasts in 2009 – a rate that will see all stations broadcasting in HD within 78 years
• Despite iBiquity’s massive promotional campaigns, HD has failed to capture consumer interest with only 32% of people saying that they are even somewhat interested in HD Radio

The report also looks at podcasts, noting that some 27 million people reported listening to podcasts at least once a month. “Growth in listeners, however, doesn’t come close to matching the growth in the number of podcasts available.”

The project, supported by the UK NGO Practical Action,  distributes the podcasts in battery operated MP3 players housed in “mobile libraries”. Community members can borrow the MP3 players to listen to the podcasts.

According to the  Lawrence D. Gudza the project has been a success:

Within six months of the project starting, the technology has reached about 75% of the local population. Farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange has also improved, with a large proportion of neighbouring communities also benefiting from the information.

Read the article on WACC’s website.

Podcasts in Thai, Bahasa and Tagalog are available for download from the APMM website.

APMM is a Hong Kong based centre working for the promotion and protection of the rights and wellbeing of migrants in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions.  WACC is the

The article provides an interesting case for why and how podcasting can contribute to development, but unfortunately we are still waiting for real world examples. The Peruvian project discussed, for example, was piloted in 2006 and doesn’t appear to have been active since then.

The February 2008 issue of SPORE, the magazine of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has an article by Ednah Karamagi, a member of a Ugandan team “committed to pushing out the ICT frontiers” describes some of the ways they are using Web 2.0 applications to help farmers boost production and sell their produce for a better price. The applications used include podcasts.

Another knowledge-sharing method we use is podcasts. Farmers who are knowledgeable about a given subject make recordings, currently in local languages, though we plan to add English at a later stage. These are then turned into audio CDs and distributed to other farmers, who have received CD players from BROSDI. Copies of these recordings are also uploaded on the CELAC website.

The three projects have one thing in common — they see podcasts as first and foremost a way of distributing programming to radio stations for rebroadcast over the air, rather than to individuals with MP3 players, a strategy that surely helps them reach much larger audiences.

A rapidly growing number of people in the OECD countries listen to radio content of their choice through podcasts on their iPods or other MP3 players. This allows them to have access to high quality content in the area of their specific interest and at a time and place that doesn’t conflict with their work and obligations. What about the developing world? Is there a scope to use MP3 players beyond urban music consumption, particularly to make specific high quality content available to the poor and people in remote areas? What could be the role of public service broadcasters who have a competitive advantage in providing trusted high quality content? The panellists will discuss some encouraging first lessons and trends in a global and local context that is shaped by media convergence.

The session will be chaired by Dr. Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO and the speakers are:

• Bruce Girard, Expert in community radio and local media, Comunica
• Seema B. Nair, Project Leader UNESCO India
• Kristine Pearson, Chief Executive, Freeplay Foundation

This is the WEMF’s 3rd meeting. The first and second ones which were held in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005, in conjunction with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Forums are World Broadcasting Union events and this third Forum is being organised in Asia by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), in collaboration with the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) and the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC). The theme of the third meeting is A new vision of broadcasting in the information society.

The 3rd WEMF is being held in parallel with the 3rd Global Knowledge Conference, also in Kuala Lumpur on 11-13 December.

The WEMF website describes the event:

The 3rd World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF3) will bring together broadcast executives, policy makers, academics, journalists, visionaries and decision makers from around the world. They will look at the fundamental changes taking place in the global information society, and discuss how these will affect the role of the electronic media as well as the dissemination of knowledge, economic and business practices, political engagement and other aspects of society.

Download the draft programme from the WEMF website (15/11/2007)

They also note that:

Over the next several years, mobile companies such as Nokia and Motorola will be rolling out millions of digital audio enabled phones allowing owners to listen to a whole variety of content. In addition, emerging standards such as WiMax5 will continue to facilitate increasing use of broadband Internet that could provide greater access to broadband over the next several years.

This has yet to happen, but with mobile phones becoming as common as radio receivers (one writer estimates that there were 2.7 billion mobile phones in use at the beginning of 2007, and somewhere between 3.2 and 3.8 billion radios receivers, with phones catching up quickly) it is conceivable that the phone will replace the radio as the main device for receiving audio.

Download the concept paper – Podcasting: Knowledge sharing for development through dialogue