CanWest officially launched the Financial Post Daily Podcast, the FP brand’s inaugural mobile offering, to immediate success yesterday. The free daily business and financial news program, available every weekday morning at 5 am at FinancialPost.com, shot straight to the top as the #1 business podcast on the Canadian iTunes website. Cisco signed on as inaugural sponsor for the podcast, which is produced with London, UK-based Daily Media.

Cisco’s sponsorship gives the company up to three ad messages – a pre-roll, a mid-roll and a post-roll – within the Financial Post Daily Podcast, each produced using different voices. Other sponsorable CanWest podcasts include the Global National Kevin Newman podcasts and two soon-to-launch podcasts at Dose.ca – a three-times-weekly ‘Celebrity Friends with Benefits’ gossip podcast and a 15-minute weekly review of movies and music called ‘Detox’ – will also be sponsorable. The mobile TV offerings through CanWest’s bbtv (including Global TV and Sportsnet updates) aren’t considered podcasts, but they’re also sponsorable.

The podcast launch follows several moves by CanWest to enhance the FP brand in advance of its centennial. These include extensions of the online business resource with microsites such as FP Trading Desk (www.fptradingdesk.com) and the Financial Post Timeline (www.fp100.com).