KYCY to become podcast radio

BAY AREA STATION IS FIRST IN NATION
By Seth Sutel
Associated Press

Infinity Broadcasting, a terrestrial radio company whose business model is being challenged by the iPod phenomenon, is borrowing a page from its rival's playbook.

Next month, Infinity will convert a poorly performing station in San Francisco to a format that will play only ``podcasts,'' or amateur recordings distributed via the Internet to listeners' iPods and other digital music players.

Infinity, which is part of the Viacom media conglomerate that also owns CBS and MTV, announced Wednesday that it would convert its KYCY-AM (1550) station in San Francisco to the new format May 16.

More here

- Lot to think about here. User content becomes 'broadcast' content. Is that good? How will it be programmed? Will user-announcers get to intro their songs? What if one user becomes popular? Is this an audition? Is it for pro's or just for hobbists...

Infinity jumping in is good - maybe even great - but it still leaves open the broadcast vs. narrowcast question. And do lots of narrow podcasters with thier own idea of audience and their own passoins, make up a coherent mass market radio station.

Well worth watching...