Apple Introduces 'Podcasts Connect' for Managing Podcast Uploads

It's just that TAL is a very high-budget program, carrying over a massive already-existing audience from public radio. That's just not representative of podcasting in general or any kind of costs associated, etc.

For example, if you don't care about having your own website or stats, you can start a podcast on Libsyn with it's feed and a webpage for $5 /mo (with the storage limitations, you'd have to do a shorter weekly show, or a longer monthly show, etc.... by shorter I mean like ~30 min) and can even use your computer's built-in mic if you don't care much about audio quality.

I'd guess that the average beginner or smaller podcaster probably spends $15/mo on media hosting, ~$10/mo on website hosting, and $50-100 on their mic, and maybe a bit more on various software/services, though most can be done for free with some work. That, of course, doesn't count the value of the massive amount of time invested.

More medium level podcasters might spend a bit more on their media hosting, but probably not much (I don't think higher pricing kicks in until you get to bigger commercial ventures with a LOT of downloads, it's typically more feature oriented in terms of pricing). They might spend $20-$50 on website hosting (better host to handle more traffic), and some money on services or plugins for that website ($100 - $1000+). They often buy better mics, but don't necessarily need to, along with a mixer or other audio gear ($300 - $1500). They probably buy some software for editing the audio, have audio bumpers made or buy stock-audio, etc. ($100 - $500). Stuff like that. Again, that doesn't include the massive time investment.

So, I'm absolutely behind you in saying that if you get value from a particular podcast, ABSOLUTELY support them! (including TAL). But, I'd never suggest that TAL is a good representation of the costs involved in podcasting. I think that's why we jumped on your post. :)

Just a note to the writer - Podcasts our not uploaded to itunes. Apple does not offer any hosting for podcasts files. They just link through css to files hosted elsewhere.