For Immediate Release April 19, 2005

For More Information Contact: Marti Lachance, 317-274-7722 lachance@iupui.edu

Sound Medicine First Health-Talk Public Radio Program to Podcast

INDIANAPOLIS - Dispensing health information through Sound Medicine is now more convenient.

Listeners now can subscribe to the show online and listen to individual segments at their convenience offline. Sound Medicine is the first health-talk public radio show to be broadcast specifically for iPods and other handheld devices that play MP3 files.

The program is leading the way; most mainstream news organizations have yet to offer podcasting services. Sound Medicine joins only a handful of public radio shows to podcast, and it is the first health-focused public radio program to do so.

According to a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29 percent of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so they can listen to audio files at a time of their choosing. Podcast subscribers also can save audio segments on their PCs and e-mail them to friends. The audio is provided in the universal MP3 format.

By subscribing to the podcast, fans of the show can listen to Sound Medicine whenever they wish -- at the gym, driving home from work, or while mowing the lawn. Just as VCR users can record and replay television programs, podcast subscribers can download Sound Medicine segments as soon they are available online and then listen at their convenience.

According to analysts at the financial education firm Motley Fool, podcasting will do for audio what TiVo® is doing for television: reinventing the field.

The podcast is based on technology called Real Simple Syndication, or RSS, which requires listeners to have an aggregator program installed on their computer. One such program is the free iPodder aggregator, found at www.ipodder.org/directory/4/ipodderSoftware. Users synchronize their iPod or MP3

player to their computer. And in the blink of an eye, they can slip Sound Medicine episodes into their purse or jacket pocket.

To subscribe to the Sound Medicine podcast, paste the following Web address into your aggregator: soundmedicine.iu.edu/smFeed.php. Now you're ready to roll!

Visitors to the Sound Medicine home page (www.soundmedicine.iu.edu) can click on the "subscribe" button and copy the same URL into their aggregator software.

Sound Medicine is the weekly radio program co-produced by Indiana University School of Medicine and WFYI Public Radio (90.1 FM) in Indianapolis . The program host is Barbara Lewis; co-hosts are Ora Pescovitz, M.D., Stephen Bogdewic, Ph.D., Kathy Miller, M.D., David Crabb, M.D., and Eric Meslin, Ph.D. ###