Podcasting Kickstarter Campaign Raises $620K+

A Kickstarter campaign offering backers the opportunity to participate in “remaking public radio” through podcasts raised $620,412 by the time it ended Friday, making it the most-funded radio or podcast project on the crowdfunding site, according to The NYTimes.

Just over 21,800 backers contributed to the appeal from the public media company PRX to fund its podcast network Radiotopia, which includes programs from Roman Mars (“99% Invisible”), the Kitchen Sisters (“Fugitive Waves”) and Joe Richman (“Radio Diaries”), among others.

The successful appeal comes as new attention is being focused on podcasts, after the popularity this fall of “Serial,” which takes listeners inside the journalist Sarah Koenig’s investigation into a 1999 murder. The weekly podcast, which is at the top of Apple’s iTunes podcast list, comes from the creators of the public radio mainstay “This American Life” and is produced by WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago.

A decade after podcasting began, the medium’s audience, distribution, revenue and content are finally coming together, said Jake Shapiro, the chief executive of PRX. “All of us are feeling like we’re at the beginning of a flourishing new ecosystem around podcasts,” he said.

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