Many if not most understand the timeshifting benefits of podcasts and other downloadable media; you can listen to or watch your favorite programs where you want to, when you want to and on almost any device you can imagine. But perhaps no aspect of downloadable media is more striking than its complete disregard for borders.

Whether you are producing a fifteen minute personal podcast about the local music scene, or managing a major media house’s hourly news video podcast, you probably have an audience in dozens of countries worldwide. Since your show is not tethered to a terrestrial broadcast station or a cable operator’s network, it can be downloaded (almost) anywhere in the world… and probably has been. But that widespread distribution raises some interesting questions:

• Do you know where your audience is?
• Do your feeds actually work with the local aggregators and distributors worldwide?
• Do your advertisers and sponsors really want to reach all of your audience?

Read more »