Adrian Pegg | my media

It’s funny how The Arctic Monkeys and others can make it into the mainstream charts on downloads alone, and yet podsafe tracks being played by podcasters have so far failed to make an impact on the ratings.

A while back, a year ago actually, when I was thinking about why this was the case, I suggested to a few podcasters that the reason for this was that there was no co-ordinated promotion of tracks, so while it is great that everyone can do their own thing and play what they like, the randomness of it all meant that it was unlikely to have an impact on traditional metrics.

At that time I put forward the idea of a ‘playlist panel’ – a bunch of podcasters who would create a weekly playlist of recommended tracks which could be promoted by everyone over a certain period of time, in order to get back some of the marketing potential enjoyed by old media. (There is a reason for promoted release dates, advance copies and radio playlists!). The idea included a voting process to get to arrive at the playlist so everyone interested could participate. However this idea was ignored by many and it didn’t get any traction a the time, although I still think it has legs so if anyone wants to develop it please let me know. (The documented idea is here.)

Now, the idea has taken on a slightly different form, more of a stunt than a long term attempt to make a valuable change, in the form of ‘Bum Rush The Charts’. This is a concerted call for everyone to buy a particular track on a particular day in order to force a chart position. However I think it is only the iTunes chart and I suppose therefore you have to buy the track through iTunes, which is a shame.

Good luck to the idea, but there are better ways to make a long term difference.