PODcast sizes

I recently made a PODcast that was around 9 mins long, the problem was that it was over 4 meg. The only way i could see to fix this was to cut some of the cast to make the time less, down to abot 7-8 mins) it still ran into the 3 gig range.

My question is, how can i make my podcasts smaller withou cutting the time down, as some of the casts are 20 - 40 mins long and i cant seem to get over 8 mins. I am useing Audacity and importing samples into it, could it be the wrong program, or could someone sugest a better one?

Any help on this would be greatfully appreaciated.

Thank you.
Pickle.

You can save it with a higher compression/lower quality level. Since it's speech, not music, the quality shouldn't be an issue.

Lower the bitrate to like 32 kbps. I assume yours is higher.

Thank you both for your quick responce. Yes my bit rate was set to 64, i will reduce it down next time.

How lond do you normaly get with 32 kbps? And would i still be able to use samples like clapping and lauhghter?

Thank you again you two.