The Tale of Two Podcasts

As I've written about before, my AppleTV has changed how I consume content in my living room. The point here is not that it's changed how I consume content -- no -- it's that it's brought the new ways I've been learning to consume media over the last 5 years into my living room, and off the island of my PC. So, as I awoke Sunday morning afternoon and wanted to satisfy my political cravings, I laid-back on the couch, turned on my TV, and flipped through my list of favorite "podcasts" on the AppleTV...

Wine Library TV, MobLogic, Face the Nation, Bill Moyers, Meet the Press...

I stopped at Face the Nation first. That great news program has one of the more sober approaches to discussing politics -- a sobriety which I appreciate more both on Sundays and during such heightened political times. However, when I went to go view the podcast, a good 3 hours after it had aired, the week's latest episode had not been added to the feed yet. "Oh well," I thought I'll just move down my list.

Meet the Press, another weekly show you should already know about, was the next one I checked out, and sure enough, the latest episode -- aired only a few hours earlier -- was up and ready to view. And so, I got my political fix on that morning, on my couch, viewing all of NBC's pre- mid- and post-roll ads, when and how I wanted to.

It was clear that Meet the Press (and if you check out Olberman's feed, perhaps all of NBC news) got this whole new media thing. It's not that I don't want to see ads or that podcasting just means I want to eventually download something to my iPod, it's that I don't want to watch your program when and how you tell me to.

I want to watch your content. I want to watch it on my terms. And I don't want to wait.

Face the Nation, however, does not get this. As of Monday night, they had not updated its podcast feed. And this has happened pretty much every week I've had my AppleTV. Meet the Press has won me over because it gets how I consume media.

More than a tale of two podcasts, this is a tale of two approaches to new media. One, I expect, will have a big pay off. The other will make its adopters wonder why no one viewed their podcast.