"I really hope I do something else before I die," said media and technology journalist Ben Hammersley to Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann, presenters of Podcasting: The First Ten Years (BBC Radio 4, Friday, 11am).

If he doesn't, Hammersley will go to his grave as the man who coined the phrase "podcast".

It was in an article for an English newspaper and he was writing about the then-new phenomenon of downloadable audio files filled with blether.

Back then, these usually concerned geeky internet stuff but now you can find podcasts about virtually anything under the sun.

If you're a regular radio listener you will have heard the term used, and if you own an MP3 player or have access to iTunes you'll almost certainly have sampled one.

Zaltzman and Mann, meanwhile, are themselves award-winning podcasters, which makes them eminently suited to host this two-part survey of a technological phenomenon which has reshaped radio and, as one interviewee suggests, ushered in a golden age of audio.

As with so much to do with technology and the internet, we have Steve Jobs to thank, at least in part.

As we learned from former MTV VJ Adam Curry, aka The Podfather, it was Jobs's decision to build podcast functionality" into iTunes that really caused the form to take off.

The BBC and America's NPR were quick off the blocks, as were comedians like Ricky Gervais, who began podcasting in 2005.

We heard snippets of his hyena-like laugh and, in an interview that sounded like it was recorded on a smartphone, we listened to comedian Richard Herring say podcasting had revitalised his career.

Woven throughout the interviews were clips from the weird and wonderful world of podcasts.

Some were culled from obvious sources - Welcome To Night Vale, for instance, one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes - but it was wonderful to hear too from people like Betty, an air stewardess who podcasts as Betty In The Sky With A Suitcase, and Grammar Girl, who is the creation of Mignon Fogarty, who podcasts on the subject of grammar - "Today's topic is 'irregardless'" is a typical opener - from a walk-in closet in her home in Reno, Nevada.

The clothes dampen the sound, apparently, so it's the best place for recording. Who needs a multi-million pound state-of-the-art studio these days? Nobody, really.