MEDIA RELEASE

13 July 2005

RECORD GROWTH FOR THE PODCAST NETWORK

Brisk expansion of Australian-based new media company The Podcast Network has resulted in a monthly increase in podcast downloads of a record 124%.

The number of downloads rose from 91,965 in May to 205,766 in June, more than doubling growth in a single month.

TPN co-founder Cameron Reilly said the growth experienced by www.thepodcastnetwork.com was further indication that the demand for high quality podcasts was rising rapidly.

“Aside from the extraordinary increase in the number of show downloads we also saw significant increases in listeners and data traffic,” he said.

Since launching in mid-February, the network has served up over 500,000 show downloads, with more than 200,000 in June alone. TPN now has approximately 57,000 weekly subscribers living in more than 25 countries.

In just four months the world’s first commercial podcasting network has launched 30 weekly shows with a further six due to launch this month.

Mr Reilly said the astounding growth of The Podcast Network had been achieved in just 18 weeks without raising capital.

“TPN has been in discussions with a range of advertisers and potential sponsors, however the priority is building a solid catalogue of high quality content to serve our growing audience,” he said.

“We have also made it clear that while we are seeking advertisers we will not just accept advertising for the sake of it.”

Mr Reilly said TPN was different from other podcasting businesses in that it followed a publishing model rather than a directory or platform model.

“We have a direct commercial interest in each show on TPN and host all of them from a single server. This way we can offer advertisers direct access to a wide range of high-quality shows all managed under one common brand. We can work directly with advertisers or their agencies to craft suitable content for individual shows or across the network.

“Our internal research indicates that podcast audiences are willing to accept advertising on our shows as long as it is relevant to the topic of the show. We respect our audience too much to offend them by inserting advertisements that don’t add value.”

TPN co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Mick Stanic said that growth had been so rapid, that TPN intended to freeze applications from hosts for new network podcasts for several months while the hosting infrastructure was stabilised.

“We are currently interviewing potential web-hosting providers around the globe that may partner with TPN and support the growing demands of the network,” Mr Stanic said. “While we are currently self-funded we are in the process of appointing an advisor to seek long-term financing for future expansion.

“We served over one terabyte of traffic in the month of June and we’ve almost delivered that already by the middle of July. That’s non-trivial for most second-tier hosting providers and we need a serious partner to plan the next twelve months growth.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Media Release. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.