S.F. radio station starts airing podcasts

KYOURadio may well be the first station in the nation to adopt an all-podcast format, according to Infinity Broadcasting, the station's owner.

Podcasting emerged last year as an online phenomenon, allowing amateurs to distribute audio programming over the Web. Listeners can subscribe to certain programs, download them and play them later on digital music players such as Apple Computer's iPod.

KYOURadio, which also streams programming online at KYOURadio.com, kicked off with a podcast created by Dave Winer, a software developer pivotal to the podcasting movement. People in 49 states as well as London, Toronto and Hong Kong, have submitted more than 400 podcasts to the station, Infinity said. The company began soliciting contributions a few weeks ago.

Infinity is pleased so far with the quality of the submissions, company spokeswoman Karen Mateo said. They include podcasters expounding on "views on life in San Francisco, thoughts pondered while commuting, highlights from the world of science, time travel and amusement parks," according to an Infinity statement. Music programs submitted span a number of genres, including bluegrass, indie, rock and Asian.

The station plans to select programming based on listeners' interests and daily feedback and evolve to 24-hour programming.

Infinity's podcast radio experiment is not a terribly risky business move because the all-talk station that KYOURadio is replacing was underperforming, Mateo said.

"It was a good opportunity with a station that hadn't been performing in the market and with San Francisco being the tech center that it is," she said.

Infinity, which owns 180 radio stations across the country, is lining up advertising for KYOURadio. Potential advertisers have had a "tremendous response" to the new station, Mateo said.