Podcast Results

The first official Podcast of The Bob Narley Show was released on December 3rd. As of today, over 1,800 people from all over the world downloaded and listened to the show. It was great to receive emails from new listeners who enjoyed the material. The response to the show was fantastic.

While I do realize that only 1,800 listeners to the show is not a huge number by broadcast standards, I can't help but feel that it is a great start to an unpublicized show delivered via new technology. To promote the feed I have submitted the RSS location to several directories and websites that review Podcast feeds for their index.

So far, the greatest benefit achieved from the Podcast has been the substantial increase in traffic to my comedy mp3 website, http://www.bobnarley.com. Traffic to my website has been growing steadily since the total rebuild, and has even doubled since October, however there was a noticeable jump in activity directly after the release of the Podcast. December traffic has already passed November, and if it continues should easily double the statistics.

With the increase in traffic came better affiliate advertising. The Bob Narley website now has new affiliate advertising deals with some major players including; Sirius, Musicians Friend, and Napster. As the traffic increases so do the affiliate dollars, however as the traffic increases so do the hosting costs. The good news is that the website's affiliate advertising dollars already make the website profitable. The Podcast just took it to another level.

Truth is, I would do the Podcast even if it didn't impact website traffic. I can't help but believe that "On Demand" is the future to media distribution, especially audio distribution, and that while streaming media has it's place, it's limited.

The next Podcast of The Bob Narley Show will have a few surprises. I have invited some of my classmates from Second City to join me in the studio and I had several requests from old listeners to do Torture Tuesday. I'm also working on a new Christmas Song that would never be allowed air time on radio. My goal is to increase the show time up to 30 minutes, of quality original content.

With any luck, the next show should launch later this week.