Salty Dog Blues N Roots is a two-hour podcast featuring the best in Australian and world blues, roots and alt-country (Americana).
A separate podcast ‘Salty Dog Interviews’ carries the interview channel, and is separate from the regular podcast.
The show started at Port Douglas FM in North Queensland as a weekly three hour session in 2003. When Salty returned to Melbourne in 2005, the show became a two hour podcast and it was downloaded by Port FM and played in the usual Tuesday night slot until that station went off-air in the mid 20 teens.
Podcasting became a thing in February 2005, and Salty Dog Blues N Roots Podcast commenced around April of that year. The show was a pioneer in narrow cast audio, bringing niche programming to a world wide audience.
The show has been solely supported by voluntary subscribers and donations all this time.
From the start, a broad definition of blues, roots and alt-country meant listeners got a great mix. Salty plays artists and bands from anywhere on planet Earth!
There is a huge listener group in the USA, UK, Europe and Australia – and reaches regularly into Russia, South America and Asia where music lovers seek out the show.
When the show started online, it was a buzz to get 500 listeners a month. Most people back then said ‘WTF is a podcast!’ and would show you the door…
Things have changed, here are the web statistics for 2020.
# Unique listeners: 195,941
# Downloads: 99,368 GB
There’s heaps more planned for The Dawg in 2021, so welcome to the show tone hounds!