The 2014 FIFA world cup was a disappointing one for the Ghanaian nationwide workforce but additionally the inspiration behind Ghana’s largest podcast community. 

First, there was some drama across the Ghanaian authorities sending $3 million money by chartered aircraft to Brazil to pay the looks charges owed to the nationwide workforce. Then, the nationwide workforce was eradicated a couple of days later on the group stage, a worse efficiency than its spectacular quarter-finals look on the 2010 world cup.

In the meantime, Aryee, co-founder of Ghana-based podcast community Gold Coast Report (GCR) was getting different concepts. “As sports activities followers, we wished to write down one thing about the entire episode which was the speak of the city. We wished to begin a dialog so we began to achieve out to writers. But it surely was very tough to get folks to return collectively and write persistently,” he instructed TechCabal.

After 2 years of many failed makes an attempt at kicking off an internet publication, Aryee and his co-founder Cyril Afeku turned to podcasts. In 2017, Aryee and the GCR workforce launched 3 podcasts: The Other Room, a women-focused present, After the Whistle, a sports activities present and Free your mind, a normal speak present that covers way of life, tradition and humanities. They ended up launching 3 podcasts as a result of he realised there have been many different tales he wished to inform by way of the medium. 

At the moment, GCR’s community of podcasts has 19 reveals, a development that mirrors the rise of podcasting in Africa and the World. Per Insider Intelligence, there are at the moment over 2 million podcasts and 424.2 million podcast listeners worldwide in 2022, a ten.6% enhance from the earlier 12 months. As of 2020, the worldwide podcasting market measurement was valued at $11.46 billion. It grew to $13.785 billion in 2021 and is expected to be an enormous $153.07 billion in 2030, in keeping with Acumen Analysis and Consulting.

This development has been spurred by the proliferation of latest reveals (lots of which contain superstar abilities), investments from giant firms like Spotify, and the elevated affordability and availability of applied sciences comparable to smartphones and sensible audio system that increase consciousness and entry.

Whereas extra Africans on the continent are stepping into the podcasting area, it stays extra of a ardour challenge that takes a few years to change into a profit-making enterprise. Maurice Otieno, Govt director of Kenya-based Baraza Media Lab, believes that Africa’s struggling infrastructure is a significant motive for this.

“The web just isn’t extensively distributed and the price of information continues to be very excessive. As soon as that is sorted, both by way of investments within the infrastructure or in innovation, then it could change into simpler to monetize,” Otieno mentioned.

So as to add, promoting income from sponsors just isn’t the identical in Africa as in the remainder of the world, as a result of Africa receives lower than 1% of the worldwide advert spend. Per Insider Intelligence, international advert spend final 12 months was $780 billion whereas advert spend in Africa was an estimated $5.11 billion. This minuscule advert spend is break up throughout totally different media platforms in Africa, with TV and radio attracting a bigger share of the viewers and advert spend.

In Africa, whereas the radio continues to be a crucial channel for audio content material, podcasting is offering African creators with a brand new method to inform their tales. From Johannesburg to Nairobi, Accra and Lagos, audio creators are beginning conversations about their lives and work whereas tackling social, political and cultural points like gender norms and inequality head-on. 

The primary international African podcast festival occurred just about in February 2021, and the organisers shared that the occasion reached 1.1 million folks from 43 international locations. Additional validation that Africa has a thriving podcast tradition. 

“Earlier than, whenever you inform folks about podcasts and clarify what it’s, they instantly reply that it’s the identical as radio however now they know higher,” Aisha Salaudeen, co-founder of  Lagos-based audio and visible storytelling firm Twenty-Seven Productions mentioned. 

How did we get right here? 

Individuals love podcasts’ audio familiarity, comfort and decrease barrier to entry. 

“I feel from an viewers perspective the largest attraction to podcasts is that they’re one thing you may hearken to passively—within the automotive or on the health club,” mentioned Johannesburg-based Justin Norman, founder and host of The Flip Podcast. “And so, as a podcaster, you’ve got a captive viewers for that time period.”

An vital issue behind Norman’s choice to decide on podcasts as his medium of communication was that audio helps bridge the hole of familiarity between audio system and their viewers.

“The podcast format was actually vital for me as a result of I wished the viewers to listen to straight from the knowledgeable,” Norman mentioned. “Clearly, I might do this in a publication however I assumed audio media was actually vital, from a illustration perspective. [For example, listening to] Shola residing in Nigeria, discuss Paystack on this Nigerian accent makes a distinction.”

Can anybody begin a podcast?

In comparison with conventional radio which requires working licenses and movies which demand extra technical experience, podcasts arguably have a decrease barrier to entry. You solely must have concepts you want to share and the proper gear—anybody can begin a podcast. 

However not all podcasts are the identical. Although the ubiquity of smartphones may need lowered the barrier to podcast creation by way of podcast-making apps, there’s nonetheless demand for a well-equipped studio for recording podcasts.

Lagos-based Mosope Alabi-Oyo, host of the Truth Booth podcast is certainly one of such folks making studio-grade podcasts. She prefers to hold her recording package wherever she’s going to interview a podcast visitor. 

“I do know you may file podcasts over an internet name however the Nigerian web community will embarrass you,” Alabi-Oyo mentioned. “On-line calls don’t meet the standard I need. I can inform the distinction when it’s recorded on-line and It simply doesn’t really feel prefer it.”

38-year-old Nairobi-based musician Dan Aceda noticed this market demand for high-quality, studio-produced podcasts and arrange SemaBOX, a specialist podcasting studio. The Kenyan-based firm affords podcasters and vloggers a variety of recording providers which might be priced between Kes 2,000 ($16) to Kes 35,000 ($292) per episode. 

“If you need to be a podcaster or vlogger, there’s a requirement so that you can now change into a sound engineer or cinematographer,” Aceda mentioned. “You need to be taught all these items [if you’re on your own] and that’s what we’re taking out.”

Aceda shared that SemaBOX has recorded 700 podcast episodes because it opened up its studio to the general public in November 2021. Its prime 70 podcasts generated $48,000 cumulatively throughout the previous 12 months, along with a $2,000 grant the studio acquired from Baraza Media Lab.

Aryee’s Ghana-based GCR affords comparable help to aspiring podcasters. To cater for the rising curiosity of aspiring podcasters, GCR created an incubator programme the place the corporate picks the 5 greatest podcast concepts from candidates and helps them develop these concepts into podcasts. The second version is scheduled to happen in 2023.

“We name them in after which take them by way of matters comparable to tips on how to develop a podcast present, recording methods and social media promotion,” Aryee defined.

The reveals on the GCR community are a mixture of co-developed reveals between aspiring podcasters and GCR specialists, in addition to already developed reveals that need to be a part of the community for assist and visibility. Each GCR and SemaBOX supply their incubation providers in trade for a income break up settlement.

Rising a podcast

Anybody may be capable to begin a podcast but it surely takes extra to develop the listenership.

For Justin Norman who hosts The Flip Africa, producing high quality content material makes all of the distinction. He put out two seasons which garnered 1000’s of listens earlier than monetising it. In Aryee’s case, the GCR podcast development was a results of compelling graphic paintings and an efficient social media technique. 

African podcasters are exploring progressive methods to distribute their podcasts, from YouTube movies to listening events and stay occasions. 

Take the I Said What I Said podcast for instance. Its hosts, Feyikemi Abudu and Jola Ayeye, threw an owambe party in December 2021. Salaudeen of Twenty-Seven Productions explains that: “On the floor, you may be considering, what are they doing, however individuals are having enjoyable. They’re constructing a neighborhood for the podcast in order that individuals who missed the social gathering will really feel like they need to have been a part of it.”

This previous decade has seen podcasters more and more take up a video-first method: creating podcasts for YouTube after which distributing them on different podcast platforms. In response to Norman, this new method is efficient as a result of YouTube affords better distribution than different podcast platforms and a extra engaging monetisation potential by way of AdSense. YouTube at the moment has greater than 2.6 billion month-to-month energetic customers and generated $7.4 billion from advert income in Q2 2022.

For a lot of Africans, YouTube, which comes pre-installed on many android units, is a major entry level into the web, in comparison with some other podcast app. The truth that it has a visible element additionally makes it extra interesting to Africa’s youth inhabitants.

Jola Ayeye, co-host of Nigerian-based podcast I Stated What I Stated (ISWIS) confirmed the validity of those assertions in an interview with Communiqué. She shared that including video as a distribution channel in 2021 helped the podcast develop exponentially. “There’s a complete new section of our viewers that doesn’t even know we’ve an audio podcast. They assume it’s simply video,” Ayeye mentioned.

Monetising podcasts 

Podcasting typically begins as a ardour challenge that’s later monetised or a medium to construct model fairness. Amongst 7 podcasters TechCabal spoke to, the preferred means for monetisation have been promoting and sponsorship. 

“Promoting is the preferred technique of monetisation. Manufacturers are paying cash to get heard on sure podcasts as a result of people tend to skip fewer ads on podcasts than they do on mediums like video,” Salaudeen mentioned.

Aryee shared that a big podcast listenership helps entice extra commercial income, a declare that Norman agrees with however added that it relies on the kind of podcast and the target market.

Norman’s first sponsorship supply got here in 2020 after he did a podcast episode on MFS Africa acquiring Beyonic. This obtained the eye of the pan-African fintech firm, MFS Africa, which reached out later for conversations on sponsorship.

“Within the case with MFS Africa, they sponsored one season simply to begin, and after that season they have been concerned with persevering with, so I signed them as much as sponsor a number of seasons,” Norman mentioned. 

SemaBOX discovered that podcasts with a small however loyal viewers are likely to command excessive bargaining energy and earnings than podcasts with excessive however fluctuating numbers. 

“If a podcast has solely about 4,000 listeners, however they at all times pay attention and each episode persistently has about 4,000–5,000 listeners, sponsorship companions are usually very .” Aceda, the Kenyan musician mentioned. “It is because they think about this podcast as a nano influencer in that exact area. And so it might appear counterintuitive, however these sorts of podcasters are making extra money than some large podcasters.” 

Advertisers additionally look to the scale of the podcast’s social media followership. 

Different income channels open to African podcasters embody stay occasions comparable to ISWIS’s owambe social gathering, cultural funding alternatives comparable to Spotify’s $100,000 grant for African creators and even becoming a member of advert networks, regardless of its shortcomings. 

At what level do you monetise?

There’s no typically accepted threshold for monetising however Aryee advised a present with 1,000 listens can begin participating sponsors.

“It relies upon. For smaller reveals which might be developing, you may have a dialog with smaller manufacturers that will simply have an interest within the form of numbers that you’ve,” Aryee mentioned.

Salaudeen, who additionally hosts and produces the I Like Girls podcast, piloted the primary season earlier than reaching out to sponsors. She was in a position to signal two Nigerian fintech firms Piggvest and Paystack as sponsors for the second season of I Like Women.

“After the primary season, I used to be in a position to go to those manufacturers and say, these are the numbers. Let’s speak,” Salaudeen mentioned.

Although sponsorship charges differ amongst podcasters, a well-liked method podcasters admitted to is to compute the price of manufacturing and distribution after which add a margin.

“I simply calculated how a lot I wanted to create the variety of episodes I wished,” Salaudeen mentioned. “How a lot will it price to rent a workforce and pay them month-to-month for six months? How a lot do we have to distribute the podcast, not simply on the podcast distribution platform Transistor but additionally by way of getting it to radio, operating advertisements and having a listening social gathering.”

Salaudeen’s case of getting sponsors early on is an exception to the norm for a lot of African podcasters. 

Many podcasters like Alabi-Oyo, who’s been operating Fact Sales space for nearly 2 years, are hopeful that quickly their ardour challenge will change into a profit-making enterprise.  Till then the sense of fulfilment derived from doing one thing their enthusiastic about is sufficient to maintain at it.

“I like to speak however extra importantly, I see the podcast as one thing I ought to proceed as a result of it’s past me. It’s my means of contributing to folks’s lives,” Alabi-Oyo mentioned.