With new media eating into print circulation, The Daily Telegraph is striking back for traditional media by offering a daily podcast service. This takes the form of a free audio broadcast of highlights from the day's paper, no doubt as a teaser for its recipients to buy the full edition and/or visit the website. It includes a step-by-step guide for those new to podcasting, plus a helpful set of FAQs.

The Telegraph podcast itself take the forms of a traditional radio news bulletin, with more in-depth reports from the likes of their City editor. It is a surprsingly long with around 30 minutes of content, so may provide an ideal introduction to the day for us poor commuters. It's certainly easier than trying to read the actual broadsheet on the tube in half a square metre of space. Some contributors are better suited to the spoken word than others, but it is still informative and well produced.

With podcasting still in its early stages, this is unlikely to transform the paper's circulation overnight. However, as the first national newspaper to offer this service, it has stolen a march on its competitors who are likely to be considering offering a similar service. Certainly they will be hoping that regular subscribers will be more likely to chose the Telegraph to get the full take on the stories of interest.

While the 'traditional' Telegraph demographic may not quite be ready for podcasting, there are still considerable sections of its readership among the iPod generation and this kind of innovation may help to change attitudes and open up new areas of readership.