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Michael Schmid, Editor ORF ON #94 What is the future of podcasts? The poetry of this sentence is just as impressive as the technological reflection of its author. The probability that someone else will click the play button for the exact same podcast episode at the exact same second is relatively small. Podcasts thus create an intimacy all of their own. And experienced hosts like to use this, playing not only into the ears but also into the hearts of the listeners. One listener formulated this poetic sentence. As part of a user interview, we had asked him to give us insight into his everyday podcast life so that we could better understand how and why people out there use podcasts as we develop the ''Radiothek''.

These conversations have been very educational and inspiring , and have shown that the media logic of radio is different. Ö3 regularly asks "the whole country"; or FM4's Stuart Freeman "goes to bed early for the nation." It is the many who listen together to the linear stream. The simultaneity of radio produces collectives and belonging. That's a different quality; not a worse one, but it has no place in the podcast medium for many users. "It can't be moderation, it needs personal ambition," another user told me. "Anonymous podcasts from radio and TV shows: that's not for me. I knew this right away.", a third. And with radio references like: "And now comes the news", nobody could do anything. On their channel, it wasn't news but the next episode. So if you want to play a role in the podcast universe, you have to communicate in a channel-appropriate way. But to do that, we first have to free ORF podcasts from the legal shackles of broadcast accompaniment.