How Afripods is trying to grow the podcast market in Africa

The Kenya-based platform has partnered with broadcast radio stations to make their content on-demand. Afripods is recruiting radio stations in Africa to create a low-cost way to preserve African culture, traditions, and language in a way where future generations can have an authentic experience. Access to quality equipment can be a barrier, and Afripods has created an audio editor inside its dashboard so that users can edit their podcasts. The platform has also attracted talent from around the world, from Ghana to Kenya, and from Egypt to Uganda. It is hoped that the industry will soon become mainstream, but awareness and early adopters will be key drivers of growth.

公開済み : 2年前 沿って Amrita Khalid の Tech

Kevin Y. Brown of Afripods on why the platform is recruiting radio stations

Well, one of the big things is barrier to entry. There are gatekeepers that exist in all industries, right? And so I think that podcasting allows people to be able to tell stories — no matter whether they’re in major metropolitan areas, more rural areas, on the coast — in a low-cost way. To me, podcasting is a low-cost way to preserve African culture, traditions, and language in a way where future generations can have an authentic experience because their stories are being told by the people who are actually living them.

Yes, I mean, most definitely. I think, number one, access to quality equipment can be a barrier. Access to good and sustainable Wi-Fi can also be a barrier. So, for us at Afripods, in order to address the needs of our users, what we did was create an audio editor inside of our dashboard so that users can edit in Afripods. So all they need to do, even if they recorded on their phone, they can actually edit [the podcast] so they don’t need the external software in order to do so, which also helps them to not have to commute to a studio.

We were talking about the challenges, and one of the things that’s happening here — and I’m sure this is happening in the West — is that you might have a good podcast and you can advertise it on digital. But in order for it to take up airspace, like actually take up air, the advertisers have to underwrite both the digital and the on-air version. So if you have a podcast that releases early in the morning, that’s an opportunity for a Nescafé or something like that to underwrite it, like a coffee brand. Or, you know, maybe some type of business tool since early risers tend to be business folk. That’s just the way that [advertisers] were thinking about it and how they’re calculating it.

There’s a gentleman named James Smart who does investigative journalism. He’s done a couple of really good series, one called Paradise Lost and another called Case Number Zero. The live event space for podcasts have really taken off, and we have these guys called The Mics Are Open, a group of radio gentlemen. We have another Gen Z group called The Sandwich Podcast [based in Kenya], who have sold a ton of tickets to their live events as well. There’s a group out of Ghana called The Gold Coast Report — they’re a podcast and a network who have done top-tier shows and live events as well. There’s a young lady here in Nairobi called Adelle Onyango who does this podcast, Legally Clueless, and she’s a very powerful woman who’s very vulnerable, honest, and authentic about who she is. She started Legally Clueless Academy, where she’s been teaching young individuals how to podcast here in Nairobi. Last year, she went out into some of the more rural areas and took her show on the road and got some really great feedback.

Regional variations are interesting because you have some countries that are doing [podcasting] a lot more than others. Look at South Africa. Egypt has a lot going on — Kim Fox, who started PodFest Cairo, is another very powerful woman. You have Kenya. Uganda is making some noise as well. Some of those stations [in Uganda] were the first to jump onto the platform for broadcast-to-podcast technology. And when you go out to Western Africa, you have [the podcast markets] in Ghana and Nigeria. And I think what’s the beautiful part is that people are taking a different approach to things. There’s a lot of opportunity for collaboration among the countries and the cultures.

I think awareness has been a challenge. And a good one. I remember, in 2019, traveling throughout Africa and going to six different countries. People didn’t know what podcasting was. But if you said radio on demand, they did. They grasped the concept. Like, awareness is the biggest challenge. We don’t lack creators — especially Gen Z. Getting the industry to monetize is another challenge at the moment. You have some guys who are breaking through, who are the industry leaders or are early adopters. But it’s gonna be a while before we become extremely mainstream. It’s one of those situations where it’s like, “Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait,” and then…boom, it takes off. It’s kind of how it was like in the US, right? Podcasting was around for so long, and all of a sudden, it took off and became a billion-dollar industry. And so I think we’re seeing the process of that coming into fruition.

トピック: Podcasts, Africa

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