Computerized Competition Pays Off?

First the "Jack" format restored a bit of variety to commercial radio playlists. Now San Francisco will see America's first all-podcast station:

Infinity Broadcasting, a terrestrial radio company whose business model is being challenged by the iPod phenomenon, is borrowing a page from its rival's playbook.

Next month, Infinity will convert an underperforming station in San Francisco to a format that will play only "podcasts," or amateur recordings distributed via the Internet to listeners' iPods and other digital music players….

Hollander described the format change as something of an "experiment," saying the company had not decided how long it would try it before deciding whether to keep it.

For some ancient ruminations on radio's future in the Internet era, go here.