The subscriptions of podcasts reached 1 billion last year. This makes me happy, as it signifies a return to the
’theatre of the mind’. Radio always was, and is, a place where I could create that very theatre in relating stories and experiences around the world, in current affairs as much as travel. Radio was my first serious job in journalism, sometimes I got it right, and others not so much.

So being introduced to podcasts by uber audio enthusiast, sound engineer and good friend Dan Dewes was a revelation. It took a while to sink in, while keeping up to date with developments in the other increasingly technical fields I work in, like TV and photography, but the bug has bitten.

Especially because the subscriptions of podcasts reached 1 billion last year. RawVoice, which tracks 20,000 shows, said the number of unique monthly podcast listeners has tripled to 75 million from 25 million five years ago.

“Five years ago, podcasting was very much a hobbyist’s activity and many people weren’t making them to make money,” said Tom Webster, a vice president of strategy at US polling firm Edison Research. “But audience sizes have grown consistently, and each listener is listening to more shows as part of their weekly habit. That’s brought major producers to embrace podcasting.”

The attached podcast is a pilot for a local radio station, for a potential urban nature series centred around Cape Town. It could be produced anywhere, on any topic, illustrating a story, supporting a message. It doesn’t have to be environment or travel-related. As with tv clips, marketing trends reveal that audio greatly enhances the visibility of a website or blog. It works especially well for commuters, whether on the London Underground, a taxi in Bangkok or the N1 here in CT.

The number of mobile downloads has shown the biggest recent growth in the podcast world.

So look out for podcasts related to your favourite topic. In so doing you will take back the power, the choice of what you have to listen to, free at last from the assaulting white noise out there.

And if you would like to create your own piece of listening pleasure, we can do that too. Design what you would like to hear. Whether children’s bedtime stories, an African or South African travelogue, a tongue-in-cheek commentary on South Africa or a corporate marketing message, we’d love the challenge.