Podcasts and radio and media?

I woke early to listen to Christian O'Connell's breakfast show on his new home, Virgin Radio.

I think he needs a bit more time to bed in. I used to be a big fan of his XFM breakfast show that he finished back in October. In reality, it's probably his sidekick Chris Smith (newsreader) who is the real star of the show. But, no, it's the whole package, the whole team. And I can't wait to hear Chris Smith's Lloyd Grossman impressions again - tragic but hilarious. Oh and his Mustapha Smith character tops that, even. "sharpeny knife" ... seriously tragic. You had to be there. Christian, hmm, well it was his first day. I think when he settles in it'll be very much like his old show. It feels a weeny bit over-produced though, not by much, but part of the joy of the XFM show was that it was a low budget. This morning he offered: breakfast show hats, slippers, shirts, and a whole bunch of other merchandise. On his XFM show it went more like: "if you want to be associated with our shirts, Chris Smith has designed it and we're looking for a company to sponsor it. Give us a call if you want to help us."

Have you noticed how podcasts are seriously exploding this year? There are so many around. Christian has a podcast with some material you won't hear on air apparently. The Ricky Gervais podcast is the most downloaded podcast on both sides of the Atlantic if I'm not mistaken. 2 million downloads to date. And the BBC reports that they had 2 million downloads in the month of December, Chris Moyles is the most popular with the Today programme interview the second most popular with 400,000 downloads last month - read more here.

It's incredible really. we're seeing The Telegraph newspaper with its own daily news podcast now too. Jon Snow has a weekly podcast based on his Snowmail brand and last week brought out a documentary/debate on cannabis psychosis (see Saturday's post, 21 Jan, for a link). Have I said before that I may actually be in love with Jon Snow? Have you read his book ShoShooting History, it's fabulous.

Anyway, am keeping my eye on podcasting. Real potential here.

For the record, I'm currently reading that Cloud Atlas book everyone banged on about last year and have just taken delivery of The Accidental by Ali Smith which I am very much looking forward to.