Apart from being able to buy music online, the software iTunes offers "Podcasts", sound or video files which can be put online by everyone and normally downloaded for free. Often podcasts are being kept update on a regular base and are downloaded to your computer automatically once you subscribe to it, making them very similar to a regular radio- or tv-show.
Japan has always been well known for being able to adopt to new ideas and new techniques, even to the benefit of the Japanese traditions. A good example of this is the Rakugo-Podcast I found one iTunes these days. Young rakugo-artists are offered the possibility to present their traditional art of comic story telling to a wide audience using the moder technique of podcasting. Because it is free, it is very likely that even people who are not especially interested in rakugo might give it a try - and find out that they like this kind of traditional entertainment. The podcast seems to be financed by a big internet provider - its advertisement appears on the wall behind the artist. That fact might put off real rakugo-fans, who are not only enjoying the story-telling itself but also the atmosphere of the small yose-theaters where rakugo is performed.
For me, this podcast has become a nice way of studying more about rakugo. I get to know more rakugo-stories and I can get an impression how the young artists perform rakugo compared to famous masters which appear on TV or DVD.
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