Ted Schadler (“guest-guest-blogging” for Charlene Li at her blog) has a good post called Getting Real About Podcast Adoption:
bq.. Podcasting feels like the Internet first did: a whole new way of experiencing the world. But at the end of the day, radio is radio and consumers will only listen to things they find valuable. So what will podcasting adoption look like? In Apple’s view of the world, podcasting is radio reinvented — as long as it runs on an iPod. To the rising tide of podcast hosts, podcasting is better than blogging for becoming famous. To venture capitalists like Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers, Charles River Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, podcasting is a bet on the next big thing. To commercial operators like Clear Channel, it’s yet another channel for selling advertisements.
p. The post is worth a read as it goes into the novelty factor, the fact that downloads don’t equate to listeners, and more.