Svetlana Panuyshkina for Telekritika 23 July, 2008
The article was first published in Telekritika No.4/2008
 

There general idea is that keeping track of the world news and events requires much time for watching TV stories and reading newspapers. Statistics reveal that office staff spend 20% of their working time watching video online. However, many countries practice a very tight work schedule, with very few workers having time to read news. Foreign editorial offices offer a way to cut the time needed for news overview. Rather than looking through a whole list of top headlines, one can visit a podcast section (online audiocast) and listen to the main news presented by a speaker. Another benefit to such an information carrier is free hands, as you can listen to the news and do whatever you wish: drive a car, travel by underground, walk, sit in a café, etc. The program covering daily headlines takes up to 10 minutes and is available at any time. You can listen to it on your PC or any other device supporting audio playback feature. According to Kseniya Novikova, journalist of foreign news department at Channel 5, podcast could be of high interest to people who are not in the habit of reading or have no time for it. Moreover, podcast conveys direct speech without prior editing and improvement.

When you need it
Introduction of podcasts could be a successive stage for the development of conventional media resulted from a desire to extend the audience or push the rivals aside. In the opinion of Anna Kovalchyuk, deputy editor-in-chief of Markets section at Ekonomicheskie Izvestiya, podcasts will supplement the basic content at first, rather than exist as an independent element. Making podcasts a separate media trend requires high quality of the product as well as considerable investment into its promotion. Olga Baida, deputy editor-in-chief at Korrespondent.net, says that podcasts should be introduced, following a minimum survey of the content-services market. Thus, the podcast could be needed badly in Kyiv where most people have top-of-the-line mobiles, while in remote regions (having neither required facilities nor the necessity) such innovations could be rather unreasonable.

In the words of Mikhail Ganitskiy, deputy editor-in-chief at Segodnya, the podcast should be applied to improve the website rating, win the loyalty of audience and boost direct sales of ads. The main advantage of podcasts is the ability to download them at home and listen on the way to work, or download them at work and listen on the way home. Finally, as the rating of a broadcasting source grows, the website is advertised free by Apple in iTunes Store visited by a great number of users downloading podcasts. If the quality of podcasts is high to satisfy the audience, the users start downloading them on a regular basis, thus making audiomaterials attractive for placing ads on the site or in the podcast itself.
 

You should realize that podcasts require higher expenses for maintenance and promotion compared to promotion of a simple newspaper or magazine, since the format of podcasts is not that widely known. “To my mind, audio news should be placed online if the rating and the audience of the edition, in particular its online version, is high enough”, emphasizes Anna Kovalchyuk. “Otherwise, introduction of the podcast will be a waste of time and efforts, if it is used by a small number of people, or not used at all”.

Aleksandr Antonyuk, editor-in-chief at the portal of Dyelo, asserts that switching to new standards makes economic sense, when the number of potential users of the new product is large. For this purpose, the user needs Internet access, an mp3 player and be a regular listener of something more serious than second-rate music stations. According to Mr Antonyuk, the problem with introduction of podcasts in Ukraine is that the radio is listened little. With popular resources like Echo Moskvy radio station (Echo of Moscow) or BBC, podcasts prospects of success would be much higher. This would indicate that the culture of listening to the radio is in place.
 

Keeping Finance in Mind
Podcast budget for an editorial office will total at least $ 1,000 to buy software for audiofiles processing, digital recorders, microphone and headphones. On average, the expenses come up to $5,000-7,000. The cost rises, if the editorial office decides to establish a studio to record and process the files.

Mikhail Ganitskiy says that introduction of podcasts in an editorial office requires at least one sound cutting specialist to cut several podcasts a day and a journalist to present audio news. Technical implementation requires a record studio and software for sound processing like Adobe Audition and Sonic Sound Forge, the latter being used for sound optimization, adding pictures into different parts of the podcast, etc. The list of the required facilities should comprise a high-quality microphone and headphones. Mikhail Ganitsky points out that file formats for podcasts can vary. You can just make mp3 files or more complicated m4b (audio format with photos and animation for iPods and iPhones). Note that most players and even PC media-players do not support m4b format. In this case, Mr Ganitsky recommends converting m4b files into universal AAC format via iTunes program distributed free on the web, thus, it can be downloaded from almost all sites containing podcasts.
 

One should also ensure a technical basis to post and store the podcasts. Buying a good server to post podcasts and the software to facilitate posting audio materials online is highly recommended. At first, while online broadcasting is rare, you can use free sites to post podcasts.
 

Why it is Hard to Do
Inna Sokolovskaya, senior-correspondent of economy department at Ukrainskiye Novosti information agency, says that difficulties which might arise when introducing podcasts fall into several categories. Technical difficulties might arise due to the absence of specialists, as podcasts are rather new in the Ukrainian Internet. Theme-related difficulties: podcasts should be posted on a regular basis and be properly timed, which requires consistency and persistent work over the themes of podcasts. Financial difficulties: coordination of podcasts development will require an individual specialist. The media will also have to purchase all necessary equipment (particularly, software).

The media should think about the ways to make the podcast attractive for advertisers. This might cause problems of “understanding”, as editorial offices have both to develop podcasts and encourage the audience to use them, as well as promote state-of-the-art technologies among the readers. To inform the audience on the launch of podcasts, you need to place ads prompting that if some one missed the headlines, he can listen to it on your website. “The audience might be ignorant of the podcast launch”, says Kseniya Novikova. “Provided the podcast differs much from the print media, the new audience might not be formed”. Thus, the knowledge of the target audience and its technical potential is of high importance. Without Internet access and thereby ability to listen to the news online, the podcasts will hardly make the users happy.
 

Motivation of journalists who develop podcasts should also be kept in mind. Olga Baida notes that a big part of innovative media are currently facing the lack of specialists. Older generation of journalists is reluctant to work with e-formats, whereas some juniors are ignorant of the basic grammar rules. According to Kseniya Novikova, print media journalists might have no incentive, desire or skills to work with podcasts. “Some journalists might be unwilling to spend their time developing podcasts, others might dislike their voice when recorded. You should show interesting podcasts to these conservatives and encourage them to do the same”, continues Ms Novikova. “Ambitious journalists who readily perceive new technologies are much easier to work with. But still you must not be oppressive and demand all at once”. You are likely to spend some time training the journalists or invite an outside specialist in case of a one-time project. However, if developing podcasts on a regular basis, it is reasonable to invest in training of the staff (or a part of it).
 

In the words of Aleksandr Antonyuk, whenever a media gets down to making podcasts, it must not entrust the whole work to the specialists of web-departments, as they are rather few and have no time to assist the journalists to make podcasts.
 

Tips for Making Podcast:
 

Suggested                                                    Parameters and Notes
According to iTunes Store (biggest online podcast collection), podcasts should run 7-11 minutes, including cut-ins after each story of up to 2 seconds. Cut-ins are a must, but they should be few. Cheerful music and pleasant voice are the key points here. Story time is up to 1.2 min. The story must not exceed 1.2 min., while the story itself should be appealing, have a minimum of cut-ins and a maximum of soundbites. A news program should preferably comprise five news stories of up to seven min. in total. Five headlines should cover different topics. If possible, put all news in one program, rather than post each story separately. This is for the user to download the whole program at once, instead of downloading it file by file.
A summary daily news report should run 10-25 min. All daily news should be converted into a single file.
Speakers. If possible, try to engage two speakers. The program should be presented by several people with a dynamic voice timbre (to keep the listener awake).
When presenting the news, mind the bright introduction and dynamic pace throughout the program. When summing it up, mention the sources where the users can read more striking stories of the kind. Depending on the target audience, the speech should be either formal and terminological, or informal and even slang. 

Podcasting (combined from “iPod” and “broadcasting”) – posting and distributing media flows (namely, audio and video programs) online (in MP3 format for audio files and Flash format for video programs) in a way that allows for automated downloading of new programs into the player.
 

The target audience of podcasts consists of PC users. There is a special podcast software (iTunes), which regularly searches across the website for the new records to be downloaded into the PC or a portable player.
 

Podcast is a convenient alternative to the radio broadcasting as it can be used unlicensed and is available anytime.
 

Podcast Owners:
www.vedomosti.ru/podcast/
http://rpod.ru/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/programmes/default.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/podcastfront.htm
 
 

Making a Podcast
 

Yuriy Panin, technical manager for Digital Future of Journalism
 

Once the topic for the podcast is chosen, the story – planned and the time – set, you can get down to recording. For this purpose you also need a minimum technical set with a microphone, a PC with an audio board, appropriate software and Internet access.
 

You can start with a condenser microphone which costs up from UAH 20. However if using a professional microphone (up from UAH 350), you need a mixer (up from UAH 600) to plug the microphone in and get connected to the PC (via line output of the soundboard or USB interface). PC running the cheapest possible profile (Р4 1.9GHz, HDD 80GB, RAM 256Mb, mother board with an integrated soundboard) costs up from UAH 1,700. You will also need a digital recorder (up from UAH 700).
 

Once all necessary equipment is assembled and plugged in, you need to install the software to record and cut sound. Audacity is the most available as it is distributed free (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) and is supported by Windows, Linux and MacOS (software kit including necessary sound programs Garage Band and iTunes). The most popular paid sound processing software includes Sound Forge and Adobe Audition (follow-up of Cool Edit Pro 2.0). These licensed programs can be purchased from official sites or local dealers, where the full version of Sound Forge Audio Studio 9 and Adobe Audition 1.5 Full cost UAH 519 and UAH 1,959 respectively.
 

Once you have plugged in the microphone, chosen the proper place and ensured low noises (particularly true for cheap microphones), you can start downloading sound editing program. Voice recording requires tuning of 3-4 kHz. However, to improve the sound and add emotional, tonal and voice timbre colouring, a tuning of 11-16 kHz is recommended. Try to record with the sampling frequency to be used for mp3 coding as well (the most wide-spread professional standard is 44, 100 Hz). Never place the microphone on a table unless you have at least a foam rubber under-pad for it. Don’t change the distance to the microphone (20-30sm) and don’t waggle your head which might change both the sound volume, and the timbre. Mind your speech, try to avoid sniffing, champing, smacking, hushing, as they distort the sound. Mind your grammar, logical and emotional pauses. 
 

Take it easy, if making any mistakes while recording, as they can be cut out later, but make sure you don’t spend more time cutting than recording. Prior to posting the product online, refine the audiofile by Normalize filter to improve the quality of sound from mp3 encoder. When your podcast is ready, you should convert it into mp3 format, as it is applied by most podcasts and is one of the streaming formats for storage and transmission of digitized audio signals. Conversion is supported by all the above mentioned sound edit software.
 

To make your podcast available for the wide public, you can resort to podcast terminals/audioblogs, like www.podcasting.com.ua. This service is free and simple. Once signed in, you will have a chance to develop your own podcast wire by posting your mp3 files supplied with text description and pictures (RSS flow). The listeners can subscribe to an unlimited number of RSS-channels, where the podcasts exporting program will search for new mp3 files to be downloaded without a PC owner directly involved.
 

Profile
On 20 August, the program Digital Future of Journalism started admission of students for the next academic year 2008-2009. The course will start in October 2008. Students will be admitted until 19 September. For detailed information, please visit www.dfj.com.ua or www.j-school.kiev.ua. 
 

Digital Future of Journalism is the project initiated by the Foundation for Development of Ukraine and implemented in tandem with the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) and SCM Group. Academic news room matching the best global practices is located in NaUKMA. This is the first and unrivalled program focused on studies of digital technologies in media and converged principles of media work.

http://www.telekritika.ua/magazine/infoproject/2008-07-23/39572