In a 2005 CBC Television segment titled “The Hour,” host Peter McBain and a panel of contributors discuss how the iPod has sparked a media renaissance, giving rise to podcasting. They explain that podcasting lets anyone with a microphone and a computer broadcast audio, bypassing traditional radio and its gatekeepers. The segment traces the origins of podcasting to former MTV VJ Adam Curry, who pioneered the use of RSS feeds for audio distribution. Various examples are highlighted: the comedy‑driven "Great White North," the intimate "Don and Drew Show," the religious "Rev Tim Podcast" (referred to as "godcasting"), and the quirky "Face for Radio" show. Speakers note the unscripted, low‑budget nature of podcasts, the intimacy of hearing real‑life conversations, and the sheer diversity of topics—from board games to wine. They also discuss regulatory gaps, noting that Canadian (CRTC) and U.S. (FCC) authorities have little jurisdiction over internet‑based audio, which both empowers creators and raises questions about oversight. Overall, the segment portrays podcasting as a rapidly growing, democratic medium reshaping how audiences discover and consume audio content.
Chapters
There you go with a bit of the news. Uh, the iPod is an important thing. You can tell a lot about a person from the iPod. See that there? That's Peter McBain's iPod. You can tell a lot about him. He's got Desmond Decker, which is good news. This thing caused a revolution in the way people listen to music.
It—
you can call it marketing, you can call it whatever you want. You cannot ignore the fact that a renaissance happened when you can put your entire library on one of these, or in my case, several of these, carry it around with you, everything you need. All of a sudden you had access to everything. Now iPods are so popular that they're changing something else's way. The way people broadcast music, instead of flipping through the radio dial and complaining, "I hate that, I hate that, I hate that, I hate that," now you download an audio broadcast and you carry that with you as well. It's something called podcasting, and it is growing at an enormous rate. Huge, if you will. It lets anyone who has a mic and a computer become Howard Stern or Alan Freed or Alan Cross. Take a look.
March 9th, 2005, coming at you live from Oldsmobile Studios here in southwestern Ontario.
The podcast is called The Great White North, so I figured I might as well mend the two together.
For that extensive review, you walk around and you go to the computer, you see. The first podcast was done by a former MTV VJ named Adam Curry. He's still doing it today and he's gonna talk about Hockey today.
I usually do it on my way home from work. Uh, sounds like we just got run over by a transport here. It's a long drive.
Roll Up the Rim is back, which means spring's pretty much here, or it should be.
I like to talk.
He sort of came up with the idea of using RSS technology, that's this blog technology, for distributing audio content as well. So he does his show almost every weekday now.
Hey, welcome to the Face for Radio show.
Hey, Face for Radio show. Face for Radio, just, I came up with that just to, you know, it's a radio cliché for people who are in radio who look probably like us.
I think it's a refreshing change.
I don't know if you've watched any TV shows or listened to radio, but it's always, well, I mean, anything that has money behind it has to be somewhat, have some sort of format.
You don't get to hear that kind of stuff on traditional radio. You don't get to hear mistakes happen.
That's it, dead air.
We've got dead air. You don't get to hear that kind of live excitement.
And by the way, stop looking at my five-hole.
You see, there's no producer, there's no script, there's no, uh, any sort of production, you know, and it's all done off the cuff, and I think it's a refreshing change for people to get something like that.
One of my favorite podcasts is one called The Don and Drew Show, which is this married couple in Wayne, Wisconsin, and all they do is half an hour before they go to bed, they record themselves talking to each other, how their day went, they crack jokes, it's completely unscripted, I mean, you hear all their mistakes and everything.
I'm back on the horse because we had noodles, macaroni and cheese. But I said, maybe we should eat it at home.
You don't learn your lesson. Yeah, so you're closer to the toilet?
Yeah, totally. So if you hear a bunch of pauses in the show—
There's something really compelling about listening to two people completely unrehearsed talking about stuff in their lives. That's something you just don't get on traditional radio today.
Greetings and welcome to the whole world. You've reached the Rev Tim Podcast. It's Thursday, March 10th, 2005. And this podcast is all about bringing hope to people just like you.
Godcasting, yeah, that's like a whole subgroup within podcasting. There's a lot of religious people, whether it's evangelical, I think there's a few Catholic ones, I think there's a Catholic priest doing a Vatican cast of some sort, he's in Vatican City. But there's a lot of, like I said, evangelical ones, but I think it's probably an easy way to get their message out.
There's 3,500 amateur radio broadcasters now that are podcasting their own shows, everything from German board games to wine.
Defective prophylactic.
Yeah.
Defective.
Hi, this is my son, defective prophylactic.
We have no sponsors, we have no, uh, nobody telling us what we can say, what we can't say. We're out of reach of the CRTC and any sort of, uh, governing of what we have to say. We can express ourselves.
For now.
Regulators in Canada, the CRTC, the FCC in the US, um, don't have any way of regulating this because it's— they don't regulate the internet.
They got Milton Berle on there.
Yeah.
Hung like a mule, apparently.
Yeah, apparently so.
Majority of these shows you're never gonna hear on a radio station because nobody in their right mind is gonna give these people airtime because they're just talking. But it's real.
It's real life.
So it gets addicting.
There's something really intimate about people who are willing to share their lives in this kind of way. You know, it's a really good extension of the blog technology. But not a lot of people have time to sit down in front of the computer and type out what happened in their day. But it's a lot easier for them to just grab a microphone, hit record, and then hit publish, and it's up on the web.
Oh, and there's the female. What great timing is that, Darby? Holy crap!
That's awesome. Yeah, our Darby Wheeler. Peter McBain here with the emails. How are you? You know, the point they made about the CRTC is a very, very— it's an interesting one. See what ends up happening with maybe Jeff Fillon from schwa.
