Towards the industrialization of the podcast in Latin America: A study of the evolution and development of the productive model of Latin American podcasting

AGUSTÍN ESPADA

Barcelona

Congreso; 7th ECREA Radio and Sound Conference "Radio and Sound Ecosystems in the Platform Age"; 2023

Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona y la European Communication and Research Association (ECREA)

Just as it happens around the world, the podcast is the protagonist of a process of professionalization, commodification, and industrialization in Latin America. This work is the first of my postdoctoral studies dedicated to the production and marketing of podcasts in the region. It has the objective of diagnosing the Latin market as well as drawing a map of particular problems or distinctive characteristics that participate in the industrialization process of podcasting. Internationalization, concentration, commodification and wage earning represent characteristics of the process that, according to what is observed in this work, have particularities in Latin America.To carry out this study, different data sources were consulted in relation to the production and commercialization of podcasts, in addition to building their own databases with original productions from different platforms. The question that guides this study is: how does the process of development and industrialization of the podcast occur in Latin America? From there, some secondary and related questions are triggered that guide specific objectives of the work: what is Spotify's role in this market? What differences exist between what happens in Latin America and the ways in which the podcast develops in Europe and the United States? Who are the actors driving the industry and with what financing schemes?The work finds that the coexistence of the different actors within the Latin American podcasting system is, up to now, more complementary than competitive. The industrialization process is subject to the generation of a financing model that has not yet matured in the region, while the redirection of production strategies from international platforms reduces production capacity. The process of internationalization of the market assumes the form of generating a "glocalized" Spanish-speaking market where professionalization occurs little by little.