Graham Brown: So Bijay, we're in the middle or not quite in the middle of 2021 in India. We've had a rather crazy 18 months and a lot has changed. What has COVID done to India in terms of podcasting? Has it changed anything? What was it like before and after? How could you say those had any kind of impact on India?

Bijay Goutaum: Yeah, I think COVID definitely had a positive impact, I would say, in podcasting in India. And there are a couple of reasons for that. And a couple of things that also proves the point. And the first thing is because of the COVID-19, everybody was locked in and, in the global podcasting scenario, we have seen a little bit of a dip in the number of people tuning into podcasts. While we have started seeing the number of creators growing when the pandemic started and the same with India as well, right when the pandemic started, we started seeing a dip in the number of people tuning into the podcast. And then we quickly started seeing people tuning into podcasts and the people who have never been before the podcast listeners also started tuning into the podcast. And the reason is obvious, which is that a lot of them were feeling screen fatigue. They were tired of being on the screen all the time. And they were looking for something where they don't have to be on the screen and consume the content. And we have started seeing the growth in the listeners, that's one part of the thing. And the other thing is because everybody was locked at home and because a lot of people had time, people started creating content as well. And with tools like anchors, Spotify in India published this report a couple of months back that said, there has been 1100% growth in the number of Hindi podcasts, which is the language, in India, obviously. So growth, 1100% growth in the creation of podcasts in India. And now that's the one side of things. And on the other side of things, Spotify is spending a lot to commission original shows here in India, and they are getting Bollywood celebrities. They are getting YouTubers to do the shows. They are licensing shows and the same goes with Audible as well. Now, Audible has got this specific podcast app only for India. It's called Audible Suno. And 'Suno' is basically, listen, listen to audible is what they're trying to say. It's Audible Suno and they do the same thing. They are commissioning a lot of shows and, getting again, the big names like Amitabh Bachchan, who is the God when it comes to Bollywood here in India, to do a show for them. Now, all of this tells us the fact that podcasting has really grown during the pandemic because a lot of people got into it as a listener. A lot of them got into it as a creator. So I must say it's been a great year for podcasting here in India.

Graham Brown: Great and you mentioned this 1100% increase in content creation, fascinating statistics. What kind of content are people creating now in India? If, for example, we look at the U.S. very popular, true crime, deep historical narratives. Politics is popular. Comedy is popular. What about in India? Is there a particular Indian flavor to the podcast there?

Bijay Goutaum: I mean in India, If you look at the, you know, top 10 list of where the Spotify or apple podcast or any other platforms in India, a couple of things come on the top, right? So the first is releasing our devotional content really well in India, right? So whether the shows that are based on Bhagavad Gita or the shows hosted by a gentleman, let's say called Sadhguru. He is the spiritual leader who brings insights on spirituality. So that's the one side of things that's working really well. And nonfiction content is doing really well. At the same time on the other side, the storytelling podcast. Because in India, if we look culture wise as well, the kind of history that we have had in the radio as well, it has always been people leaning forward to listen to these stories on the radio. And also, the grandmothers and grandfathers sharing the stories to the kids. Every single person, a lot of us actually have grown up listening to those stories from our grandfathers and mothers, and then people kind of tune into that kind of content as well. When it's a storytelling show where people are tuned in to listen to the stories. So stories are fictional. Storytelling is a really great genre. That's working really well. And as I said, devotional and spiritual content that's doing really well as well. And personal transformation is another thing that works really well in India. And other than that, like the usual thing that works in India is cricket, right? Because India goes crazy with cricket. Oftentimes cricket players are referred to as Gods so cricket works really well. Also the other thing that works is Bollywood or the entertainment content where gossip is kind of a show that works really well. So about the true crime stuff, will that work. It will work most probably because we don't have a lot of true crime kind of things, but whatever we have not a very highly produced show, just experimental kinds of shows that some people have tried that also get some really good tracks. And so I think that's where the huge potential is, which is going to be the true crime and the things that work in the west are likely to work here as well. It's just that not much of the content has been yet created here on the genre. Hmm.

Graham Brown: Interesting. I'm curious about comedians. For example, I see a lot of podcasts started by comedians in India. What is that about? That's not different to, let's say the U S but there seems to be a large number. Is that just because they're a bit braver than the average person and therefore easy to start a podcast? Or is it because they don't get the distribution in traditional media? What are you seeing going on?

Bijay Goutaum : So I think the comedians getting into the podcasts are, again, these are the people who have always done. The thing suits the other people being a comedian itself, standup comedian in India itself is something that people have done out of being brave, because. I don't know if they are going to ever make a career or not. Now it's more mainstream with Amazon and Netflix commissioning the shows and people talking about the comedians with social media now becoming a comedian is a thing now, right? So now these are the people who are also gauging the interest of the audience and where the attention is going. And not only comedians, in fact Graham. Now YouTube is out jumping into the podcasting board, right? Some of the really popular YouTube videos are in India. They have recently started upping the podcasting game. And the reason that they are doing this is because they have realized the amount of time that people are spending to watch a YouTube video is getting less day by day. And today it stands at less than five minutes of engagement on a YouTube video. And now if you compare that with more than 30 minutes of podcasts and that too, without any visual clutter, when you are listening to podcasts, then there is literally nothing that disturbs or disturbs your experience. Once you go out on a jog, once you hit that play button and put that phone in your pocket and go on a jog, you are highly unlikely to stop every two minutes to change the podcast channel. But with YouTube, like when you are on screen, there's a lot of distraction. That's still, and people are highly unlikely to stay for the long form content. One thing is obviously they want to engage with the audience. And the second is because they realize that this is a great way to engage an audience for 30 minutes, and that's a crazy amount of engagement that you can have in a podcast. So these are a couple of reasons. These are the people, obviously, anyways, they are creating some of the other forms of the content on social media. And I guess it comes naturally to them to get content as well and much easier than other people do. Probably they understand the content game and cracking that code of, Hey, what might work with my audience, for somebody who is just thinking about starting a podcast for the first time, it might not be, is evident as it is for a comedian to know what might work and what might click with my audience because they have already experimented in other formats and it becomes much easier to replicate that in the podcasting.

Graham Brown: From your perspective then if you look at all that content that's coming out now, what do you think is underrated in India, like, what is the content that's growing? And you think is going to get bigger and hasn't gotten much attention, not necessarily just the content, but the ways maybe people are using podcasts in India, because I'm sure at the beginning, they're just watching, learning from other markets, adopting, adapting, improving what's now happening at a local level that's interesting and you think is going to get bigger.

Bijay Goutaum: I think the interesting thing about India is that while it's such a big country, it thinks about it like Europe, right? Every single state in India is totally different in terms of language, in terms of culture, in terms of, the way people do things it's completely different. And now what we're going to see is the fragmentation. When I say fragmentation, not in a negative way. What I mean by fragmentation is now we'll start seeing people creating the content in local regional languages. Now, English and Hindi, while might have been the languages where a lot of people might have been creating content. But now we have started seeing people creating content in the other regional languages. People creating content in Telugu and Tamil land, people creating content in Marathi and Gujarati and Bhojpuri and all of this. And the interesting thing about this is. These content creators are getting some really, really good traction. And right now nobody is paying a lot of attention to creating, focusing, and creating the content into regional languages. And that's in the next two to three years, we'll start seeing people jumping with the creators and the listeners jumping in and a website has seen that happening already. So there are platforms which create this content focused specifically on the regional language content, right? So they are not interested in taking a lot of English content, but they are interested in maybe all these different languages. So I think that is where I believe the next growth of podcasting is going to come from. Because if you think about it right now, the not misery, the number of people who listen to podcasts right now, Comes from the Metro cities like Delhi and Bangalore and Hyderabad and Mumbai. But now the next growth that's going to come on the podcasting, that's going to be from the reasonable languages, local languages, where, you know, from the smallest cities, because these are, this is where people are gonna relate to the content much better when, you get to hear the content in your mother tongue, then that's when you relate to the content much better. And if you find the quality content on that, then you know, you can probably, you would want to probably switch and consume the content in the language of your preference. But right now you don't have too many options, but when you have those options, then you probably want to consume the content in your own mother tongue. So I think. Yeah, I think that's something which is highly underrated, but yeah, that's something that's going to grow. really well.

Graham Brown: And this happened in the media as well in India. Isn't it? You've got Tamill, it has its own theater and movie stars, et cetera are very different from other parts of India.

Bijay Goutaum: Yeah. And also the reason why Tik Tok, for instance, grew, now it's banned. That's totally a different story, but the way Tik-Tok has grown in India, it was crazy. They had the app on. I proposed and in multiple languages, people could choose the language of their preference. I don't remember the exact number, but I think it was more than 10 languages that Tik-Tok was available in India and that the way it has grown and exploded in India, I think the largest number of people using Tik-Tok was in India. And no one does it's those creators who are, and the kind of creativity that you saw on the Tik-Tok because it's removed that barrier of saying that, oh, you know what I mean, the people who are in the Metro cities are only creative people and the people who are living in maybe tier three city is not, they literally remove that barrier and you would see all sorts of crazy things. A lot of people even wonder wow, this is also a part of India. So yeah, I think they, with the tools like anchor coming in and making it easier for a lot of people to create podcasts and even Indian podcasting apps that are trying really hard to get more and more creators on board to come and share their stories, share their poems and literature. And I think that's another thing that we are going to see, which is a lot of people, who write poems or short stories. They want to share that with the world literature or piece of work. I think that's also another thing that's going to pick up really well.

Graham Brown: Tell me about your thoughts on these local apps. So obviously the most famous is Gaana outside of India. What's the scene? Are they able to capture that narrow cast, those local languages? Who's interesting you at the moment because obviously Spotify and Apple are a big part of the game, but increasingly it sounds like these local apps are going to have a bigger stake in the market. What do you see?

Bijay Goutaum: It depends. If you look at Spotify while, they might even if you look at Spotify as a presence in the Indian market and the music streaming site. Even if you look at the music streaming site, the people in the tier two and three, it's the Gaana and Jio Saavn and Wink, and so many other platforms. But the penetration of Spotify, isn't the urban millennial who wants a certain kind of status where, you know, what, where do you listen to music? I listen to it on Spotify. It's a cool thing to say, right? And that's the kind of people who are mostly on Spotify as yet. Now, if it compared that with the kind of people who are in Gaana, in Gaana the people who can do the podcasts in Gaana they are people who come from the smaller towns and cities. And interestingly for us, right at wine studio, we produce a lot of shows and we produce a show called heroes of the Ponderosa. English show and, it's mythology fiction show, but again, the number of the kind of people who are listening to it, like I think almost 25% of the consumption for that show comes from Gaana and it's interesting for us to see the kind of people, and the kind of shows that they're consuming being on the platform, which has got a larger presence in the tier two, three and four cities of the country. That's interesting to see, but now again, it's difficult to say we might win this game because Gaana is targeted more on the Hindi and maybe, they will live until they expand into other regional languages. Our Spotify right now is looking at the wider audience where they are english speaking audience, and also they are doing a lot of podcasts in Hindi as well. They are yet to get into the regional content while Jio Saavn is there. Now they have been in the game since 2016 into podcasting game. Obviously the, in the music that had been for the longer time, but in 2016, they got into podcasting and they have now already, ventured into a lot of regional podcasts as well. But again, Spotify is the one who has got a little bit of a leverage among these big players is that they have a creation tool as well, which is Anchor which right now is not the case with Jio Saavn or maybe Gaana and all this, but also having a creation platform is not also a good thing all the time, because we have recently seen right. I think out of 2 million podcasts, there are only some 77, 50,000 podcasts around that number are the podcasts that have only got more than 10 episodes. And among the platforms from where the number of the podcast, which only has one episode. And anchor tops the list, right? And it's not even a subtle difference. It's like a huge, huge difference. Because when you make the tool three, then you will have all sorts of people coming in and all those podcasts are going to land on Spotify. And which is going to make discovery more and more difficult for the good podcasts. And for the audience it is difficult to figure out which is the good and bad, but you know, the same with the Gaana and all this platform is. As of now it stands, the curated content really well. And they make sure that the content on their platform is not this. A show which shows up and, comes on. So in that sense, again, the plus and minus, right? So because you have a tool, then you can get more and more people to come and create podcasts at the same time, you will have. Ah, I love this word. Somebody who was using a podcasting group, said that little podcasting litter is the word that the person uses for items, remember his name, but that's a really interesting thing I said. So you have a lot of podcasting litter, so it's difficult to say who might win the game, but spotify obviously has got a deep pocket and they are spending, I think they must be one of the highest spenders when it comes to creating new shows that are commissioning a lot of shows almost every week. They have a new original show that's coming on. They have now started. License just the way they did with Joe Rogan. Obviously not at the place that they paid for Joe Rogan. In India, obviously they wouldn't pay that, but yeah, they have started reaching out to existing podcasters with a lot of content to make it exclusive on Spotify for a certain number of years. So it started seeing those kinds of licensing deals happening and they are going aggressive with that. So yeah that's the kind of, that's what's happening here in India. With the platform side now, and on the other hand, there are creation platforms, platforms like anchors, there are platforms where people can actually go and create podcasts. And, some funded startups that are there's one called cuckoo FM, where people can go and create the podcast. And they're our company, which is another one. And there is another one, and these are like, again, all of them are, again, focusing on the local markets. They are not looking at the tier one kind of a market right now. So it's an interesting time. Definitely.

Graham Brown: Excellent. All right. Let's round up and think about the future. We've talked about the kind of content that you're seeing grow, and what's interesting and what's underrated as well. What do you want to see change in the next two years, at least in the market? What do you want to see more of? That's going to make podcasting better and more robust as an industry.

Bijay Goutaum: So right now, the podcast, as it stands, when it comes from the monetization point of view, it's largely by, either platforms like Spotify paying to, create this, to create the podcast or, some brands here in there. Commissioning the podcaster of the commissioning platform like ours to create the original shows. That's how Lot of revenue generation happens, right? From the sponsor's perspective where brands are willing to experiment and put money in the podcast. Right now we know the answer to that is no right. I'll give this answer in two different parts. So one is, when advertisers and sponsors are more eager and willing to put money on podcasts. And that's when we'll start seeing a lot of creators also coming in and also reducing the number of people who give up on podcasting because they couldn't sustain it because it takes a lot of time, effort and energy and resources. And at the end of the day, you don't have anything to compensate for the time, effort and energy that you're putting into it. So while there are so many amazing creators who are creating with the hope that someday they might make money out of podcasting. But again so that's one part of the thing, right? I would like to see, and which I think is happening. It's not that, it's not happening, but. It has started happening now, brands are paying attention because when everybody's talking about the podcast, then brands obviously want to be where, audience's attention is, right? And that's why we have started seeing brands now start paying attention and saying that at least are now eager to hear podcasters is out to say, Hey, what you have to offer to us for this to come on board as a sponsor. And some of us have seen some, some of these brands going out and sponsoring the podcast and stuff like that, but obviously not as much as you and I would like to. That's the first part of it. And the second thing, which I think that happens again from brand's perspective is the branded shows where brands are now going to create their own property or asset where it's going to be and something that you also do at Pikkal right? Where giving the brands, the narrative. We are helping brands to share their message with the world, helping them share their vision mission maybe, where what's happening and building thought leadership is something that's going to really push a lot of brands. And that's gonna, I think, pump a lot of money into the podcasting game from the indie creators, obviously. So that's the end of the thing. And the other thing that's already happening is creators coming from different kinds of mediums and coming into podcasting, right? So YouTube was doing the podcast. Now they are going to bring the people. A lot of people, let's say, a YouTuber who has got 2 million followers goes and does a podcast. Then you know, those 2 million people out of those two, 2 million people, whatever the number of people are going to come and take the podcast out. And not only then looking for that one podcast that they are going to also discover the other podcasts that are on the platform, just the way Serial happened. So people went to consume Serial and then they realize, oh, there is the entire new world here of podcasting. And then that really helped. And I think a lot of Bollywood celebrities and stuff like that, people with massive fan following and that's what Spotify is trying to do, tapping into these people and trying them to create exclusive show on their platform so that they can get these people on the, on Spotify to consume the podcast and then maybe, discover other shows as well. So I think that's the other thing: there's different media, different people creating content and having a huge fan following at other mediums during the podcast. That's the other thing. and one more thing on this is the news media and the traditional news media getting into podcasting and start giving out the content in the performer podcast. Now we have started seeing radio stations and FM stations. Could he get podcast one lead content? Now they are getting into that. But again, do we have as much as we'd like the answer to that is no, but are we getting there? The answer to that is yes, absolutely. We are getting there now. We are, people have started doing that. So in the next two to three years I think, there's going to be a massive growth of podcasting in India.