So a couple years back I had a subscription to Audible, which allowed me to download to copy-protected versions of radio shows and audiobooks for about ten bucks a month. I was mainly interested in the former, especially the handful of NPR shows I really enjoy.

Now, this might seem crazy - why would anyone pay ten bucks a month when most or all of these shows are available for free on the web? Well, one reason is that (as I mentioned in the older post linked above), the shows you can get from the various NPR websites are generally streaming-only, not downloadable. There are of course a number of ways to get around that, including using a program like Audio Hijack Pro to make a recording from the stream itself. And indeed, this is something I dabbled with for a little while.

But in the end, I was ultimately uninterested in keeping up with any of the various hacky, inelegant solutions. I just wanted something like a podcast - subscribe once and forget about it without missing a show. Audible seemed like a pretty good approximation a few years ago, but I was continually frustrated by the cruddy sound of even their highest-quality recordings, and it seemed stupid to pay a monthly fee for something I wasn’t enjoying all that much. So I cancelled my subscription and resolved to try and listen to the actual radio more often or content myself with web-based streaming.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. The various public radio organizations do produce free podcasts - you can subscribe to them in iTunes just like anything else. They’re all handily listed under the "Public Broadcasting" section and it really couldn’t be simpler. High quality, no copy protection, no monthly fee. So why didn’t I jump at the chance to subscribe to them as soon as iTunes added built-in podcasting support?

Because I’m a fucking moron, that’s why. I don’t know why else it wouldn’t occur to me to see what public radio podcasts were available - I guess I assumed the only way to get legal, downloadable NPR shows was through Audible. And that’s partially true - my two favorites, All Things Considered and A Prairie Home Companion are not available as podcasts in the form of complete shows. But many of the news podcasts that are available collect stories from ATC as well as other shows, and the reason that there is no tidy PHC podcast is, as it turns out, pretty reasonable. And there’s plenty of other good stuff to listen to - Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and This American Life are both available as entire shows, and there are plenty of little 5-15 minute digests that are worth a listen as well.

So a number of these have now been added to what was previously a subscription collection of only two - the Penny Arcade podcast, and the weekly audio version of David Pogue’s print column for the NYT. I know it’s still a meager bunch compared to what some of you are listening to, but give me a break - I’m clearly a little slow.