As I've put together the show each week, it's been on my mind that podcasting as a phenomenon (at least so far) has largely been about covering topics with very broad appeal. Or at least, topics that might find potential interested listeners scattered across the country and the globe - music, global events, television shows, movies, etc. I think this is partly because podcasters thrive on knowing that their material can reach people they've never met, people far away from them in geography and perhaps even in background and lifestyle. So it's natural to wonder whether a podcast like the Richmond News Review that is mainly tied to some geographical locality can survive on different forms of support and encouragement. Is there enough interest (local or anywhere) in having a show that's focused on local news and opinion to justify its existence?

I think that, so far, the answer is "yes." While it's tempting to go for the glory of producing a podcast that's made to be heard all across the Internet, like blogging, I think at some point there is a saturation of that "market" that is difficult to rise above. Unless I was so insightful and interesting that listeners worldwide couldn't help but tune in (and for ego's sake, we'll allow that possibility but put it aside for now), I would just be another voice in the wilderness of online commentary and content. And also as with weblogs, I would have to work just as hard to get people in my own town to listen to me as I would getting someone in Norway to do so. I would be competing with whatever the rest of the world had to offer.

With local podcasting, we can make a unique contribution to the online world AND give local/regional listeners something very relevant to life in our community. As a fairly avid podcast listener myself, I want that mix of material from near and far to balance each other out. I hope that the Richmond News Review is just one of many forms of content publishing that makes these massive pieces of technology infrastructure (that are often overwhelmingly global and abstracting in their scope, i.e. the Internet) do more for the end users who often have very concrete and localized interests back home.

What do you think?