Culture | Aural history

Podcasts got their name 20 years ago this month

A once-fringe medium has gone mainstream, but many wonder what the future holds

Joe Rogan talks into a microphone for his podcast.
Photograph: Getty Images
|NEW YORK

In February 2004 Ben Hammersley, a British journalist, noticed a new kind of digital media: “downloadable radio” produced by geeky amateurs or public broadcasters. Mr Hammersley suggested a few names for it. Fortunately “audioblogging” and “GuerillaMedia” did not catch on. But a third did: podcasting, a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcasting”.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Aural history”

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