March was, to say the least, a big month for us. First, the happenings, then I’ll get into some of the numbers:

1. We launched two new audio programs in March. The first edition of TPR Spotlight, entitled Suicide in Japan by the Numbers, was published on March 15. This new program is hosted by Christopher Pellegrini. The goal with Spotlight is to take a more in-depth look at some of the issues surrounding Japan that don’t fit into the purview of our other programs. We’re aiming to have one or two releases each month, always in a conversational/interview format.

2. We also finally released the first edition of BizCast Japan, which had been in the pipeline for quite a bit. This program will take a biweekly look at Japan’s business issues, and will be presented in a discussion format. Co-hosts Albrecht Stahmer and Ken Worsley would love to hear some feedback on the first release.

3. On March 26, we were humbled to publish our first entry by the overwhelmingly talented Mr Adam Richards. Most of you know Adam from the Mutant Frog Travelogue. In mid-March, it appeared as though Mutant Frog would be offline for a while, and so by default, we were in a position to publish one of his pieces. Luckily for those of us who observe Japan, Mutant Frog is back up and running and Adam is posting there again. The door is still open for him to post on TPR at any time, so be on the watch.

4. Finally, on March 8, Seijigiri published its first interview, with human rights activist Debito Arudou. We would like to express a sincere thank you to Debito for giving us his time and discussing his ideas. If you’re at all interested in human rights issues in Japan and you haven’t heard the interview yet, it’s worth the time.

The numbers:

• Total traffic to TPR in March increased 74.89% compared to February
• Daily traffic to TPR in March increased 58.01% compared to February
• We came close to moving an average of two gigabytes of data per day
• Alexa ranking moved from 707,565 on March 1st to 461,073 on April 1st
• Technorati ranking moved from 75,050 on March 1st to 59,350 on April 1st

The releases:

We managed to put out 14 audio releases in March, 12 of which were original content. The top five March releases by listens were:

1. Seijigiri #19 - The Debito interview
2. Seijigiri #20 - April elections and comfort women
3. TPR News for March 2nd
4. Chris Pellegrini’s editorial on the Japanese justice system
5. TPR Spotlight #1: Suicide by the Numbers

Top search terms:

interesting suicide facts
transpacific radio
mike honda comfort women
toyama kouichi
honda comfort women
外山恒一
joaquin phoenix dolphin
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The future

We have a tentative release schedule for April ready. Now that our five regular audio programs are all running, we will be sticking with them and aiming to put out between 10-15 releases each month. We have a few other things in the works as well, so stay tuned for them. Seijigiri #21 is already in pre-production…so I have to get back to that…