Leo LaPorte, the host of This Week in Tech has declared podcasting to be “The best advertising medium ever”! This is particularly interesting since it’s a total 180 from a position he declared publicly just 10 months ago at the innaugural Podcast and Portable Media Expo.
LaPorte said he had hoped that “a listener-supported business model would work, but quickly realized it wouldn’t and advertising didn’t have to ruin the show.” Advertisers who’ve sponsored his popular podcast recently include Dell, Visa and T-Mobile.
When you consider most social media “channels”, much like any other broadcast medium (print, TV, radio), the notion that advertising has no place is indeed a bit odd (and, uh, who’s going to pay for the content?) The challenge is working it in an appropriate manner. “Interrupt and repeat” as an effective method of connecting with consumers is dead (as we were all told at Tuesday’s Media in Canada conference). So the new channels need new methods. (Frankly, I have to say that I wonder sometimes if we’re about to return to the early days of TV, when anchors and stars made sudden turns to the camera in order to better describe the merits of Lucky Strike cigarettes. The line was so blurred then that no one even talked about it!)