BBC News writes “Podcasting is cheap. All you need is a laptop, a microphone and a bit of a flair for technology and you can create your own programmes.” They cite two recently released reports about Podcasting as a trend, one from U.S. and one in Britain. People downloading to podcasts are still in a minority, despite the hype surrounding them, research suggests:

The number of US households listening to podcasts will increase to just 12 million by 2010, a Forrester Research report has found.

The survey of 5,000 US consumers by Forrester found that 3% had tried listening to a podcast. Of them, 2% had experimented with audio downloads but did not listen on a regular basis. There will be just 700,000 diehard downloaders in the US this year; a tiny audience compared to the 25 million people who tune into stations run by traditional broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR) every week.

A survey by research firm BMRB found that nearly eight million Britons will go in search of a podcast in the next six months. The Forrester survey backs up some of the findings in a report from BMRB.

Its survey looked at digital consumption in the UK. It also found that podcasts are the preserve of young males. But it predicts a much quicker uptake of podcasts in UK households, with around eight million adults logging on and walking away with their favourite radio programmes in their pocket by September this year.

The huge discrepancy between the figures for the US and the UK could point to relative differences in listening habits, online dexterity or even national character.

It could also reflect just how difficult it is to make these predictions.

How good can these numbers be? It seems hard to gather solid information, also because the number of people using Podcasts is very small compared to the number of people owning an iPod.