Ordinary Gweilo

In Hong Kong, listening to the radio really isn’t an awfully attractive option.  So I’m all in favour of podcasts (though I wish someone would devise a better name for them). 

Obviously there’s the Ricky Gervais podcasts.  Mainly rubbish, of course, but some of it very funny.  The first series has just finished, though I’ve only listened to the first 8 or 9 (out of 12).  At this point they were saying that they would take a break before doing some more.  Well, they seem to have changed their mind (as noted by Shaky) – and plan to cash in on the huge popularity of the first series by starting the second series immediately and charging for it. 

I don’t have a problem with that, but it’ll be interesting to see how many people are willing to pay.  They’re charging about US$2 per show, which is not excessive (and it’s gotta be more entertaining than two copies of the SCMP), but it’s a lot more than free.

The BBC is also experimenting with podcasts.  These are free, and currently they are available to everyone (some of the BBC services are limited to UK residents only).  Details here. 

I also read somewhere that Amazon may offer downloads of CDs – so if you buy a CD you could also download the music to your PC or MP3 player.  I don’t quite understand this – why can’t record companies simply allow this for every CD?  What’s so difficult about that?