They troll the empty airwaves

If you remember the opening line to Squad Cars, "They prowl the empty streets at night, waiting in fast cars and on foot", the re-emergence of the radio story will make you feel nostalgic.

Trends in top podcast charts show that the talk-radio style is regaining its place in the digital space, with podcasts that have more talk than music being more popular with South Africans.

The top 10 Apple iTunes' podcasts show that South Africans are streaming and/or downloading talk-based podcasts.

Technology podcasts such as Discuss IT ; religious/spiritual podcasts such as Daily Hope with Rick Warren and finance/money podcasts such as The Money Show with Bruce Whitfield rank highly on the list.

Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx says the appeal of podcasts is their convenience.

"People are looking for convenient ways to consume content that they don't have to work to get."

Gareth Cliff's CliffCentral is downloaded about 500,000 times a month. Cliff says it is possible for podcasting as a business to be lucrative, but the quality of the content is key to making it so.

"You've got to be good. if you're producing quality content, people will be prepared to pay."

He says "podcasts are premium products - like the episodes of a TV series you love".

"The people that listen to them usually listen to the whole thing and they have them on their phone - the most important piece of equipment they have."

Mainstream radio is catching on. Last week 94.7 tested the waters through the addition of an age-old radio element - the radio story. COPPS airs every Tuesday at 5:55pm on Anele Mdoda's Drive with Anele.

The show takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to Johannesburg's ills - it is based in the City of Metropolisburg - and tackles issues such as crime and politics and takes a swipe or two at political figures such as President Jacob Zuma and the public protector.

But whether COPPS will have the same pull as Squad Cars remains to be seen.