Right, let's go a little bit round the world.
We'll start in Nigeria, because we've learnt
things about Nigerian podcasting. For example,
they are much less likely to podfade. 74 % of
shows remain active in the country. Spotify for
Creators is the number one podcast host in the
country as well. And I thought this is really
interesting because we hear an awful lot of shows,
an awful lot from the UK and from the US and
from Australia. We hear very little coming out
of Africa. So I thought, well, let's find out
a little bit more. In a first for this very podcast,
joining us live from Lagos is the person who
put this work together, is Tony Doe. Greetings,
Tony. Hey, James. Thanks for having me. Hi. Hello,
Sam. Hey, how are you, Tony? I'm great, and you?
There you go. You see, look, the technology works,
which is a fantastic thing. Nigeria is massive,
isn't it? 224 million people who live there.
And counting. Yeah, and counting. 60 million
people speaking English. 64 million people speaking
Hausa. And one of the things that I was interested
in on this data is that the data which comes
from the Nigerian Podcast Index, over 90 % of
shows are in English. And Hauser is, I think,
from memory, something like 2 .7%. Why aren't
there more shows in Hauser, Tony? There are lots
of shows, but not enough shows registered as
podcasts. Ah. Hauser, yes. When it comes to radio,
there's a lot of content. There's a lot of outside
content on radio, live radio, community radio,
communal radio. But when it comes to podcasting,
and I'm still searching, so it's not as if the
journey is over per se, but it comes down to
platforms. There's a limit to language options
in terms of primary speech for content creators.
So we're dealing with major languages, usually
English, French, maybe Spanish, languages that
seem to have more global appeal. And only until
recently... We started having platforms that
decided to look a little inward and create content
or rather create a place or a home that would
allow local language podcasts to thrive. Another
thing is, you know, education as well. If they
know that platforms exist, then they can come
on board and speak their languages with a bit
more ease. A lot of them don't know that you
can do that yet. Yeah, and I guess if you were
to use Spotify for creators, then all of that,
I'm going to guess, is in English, is it? It
is. Everything is in English. Even the ones I
managed to get on the index actually belong to
a service. A new service, I think RFI or so,
they're not exactly based in Nigeria, but they
do cater to local languages and then have podcast
structures. Tony, hi, it's Sam here. Talking
of Spotify, the top podcast app in Nigeria is
Spotify. Yes. But for the benefit of our sponsors,
Buzzsprout, who is the most popular podcast hosting
company? There are a lot of... podcasters using
buzzsprout i have friends who are using buzzsprout
and not just using the platform but actually
benefiting from all the features of the platform
which means they're actually monetizing with
it which is not which is not exactly as popular
with other podcasters but i do know a few people
who who are using buzzsprout but spotify has
a massive massive gap I think Buzzsprout is next
or Acast. I'd have to go through again. Excellent.
Yes, yes. Well, I suppose because it's free,
right, Tony? I mean, just on the very basis that
it's free, that people are going to go there
first. Yes, that. And let's not forget what it
was before it became Spotify for Creators, which
was Anchor. Besides the fact that it's free,
it's the nature in which it was even created.
people could, from their phones, record their
content and publish directly. And what Ankur
was doing at the time was also submitting on
behalf of the creators to the podcast directories.
So a lot of people who didn't even know what
was going on with the RSS feeds ended up in actual
podcast directories. So there's a lot of content.
coming from that time and then you know maybe
now people you know are starting with what they
see as free but a lot of people actually started
podcasting when anchor was available and because
of the nature of ANCO itself. And a lot of them
have remained on that platform since, even with
all the transitions. Yeah, you make a really
good point because, I mean, I remember going
to, I did some training in Ghana and talking
about what to put on your radio station website.
Suddenly realized, of course, that most people
are accessing the internet through mobile phones,
not necessarily through a laptop or a desktop.
And of course, Anchor was brilliant at that because
Anchor had an app that you could use to record
stuff straight into Anchor and publish and away
you go. Yes, exactly. And I think that's what's
missing in the space now. And I think people
actually look forward to something like that
happening again. or a resurgence of that type
of um that type of availability and it's not
it's not there anymore yeah there you go sam
there's another there's another hint and tip
for how true fans work Yeah, I'll stick that
on the 2027 roadmap. I don't think we're going
to get that anytime soon. Sorry. Now, Tony, I
was looking at the genres of the shows and religion
and society and culture are the two big genres,
which are much the same, actually, as in the
UK or the US or here in Australia. But what's
the big difference between podcasting in Nigeria?
and in the UK or the US? I'd say ours is culturally
driven, really. Our lifestyles, our attitudes
towards things, our perspectives on issues as
hope and faith are really what drives what we
do when we create. We're a very communal... society
we find excuses to gather at places which is
one of the reasons remote work was kind of difficult
to introduce to the workspace in Nigeria because
people like seeing you people want to see you
even if you're not doing anything people won't
see you and then we like having conversations
loud ones too talking over each other and that's
why a lot of the shows you find in the index
are Chat shows, more or less, co -hosted shows,
hosts bringing in guests, panels, four to five
hosts sometimes. And then the reason religion
kind of works is because there's already a system
that supports it in terms of... It's recording
and preservation or archiving. Long before podcasting,
we used to have cassettes. We used to have Bibles
on tapes. We had preachers who would actually
put a series of monthly sermons or quarterly
sermons in cassettes and then have these sold.
And then when CDs became a thing, it continued
with that tradition as well. space became available
for this kind of content as well. It also moved
into that space as well. I wrote an e -book a
while ago dedicated to pastors and ministers
teaching them more or less how to turn their
sermons into podcasts because the content already
existed and it just helped with proliferating
the messages. And helping them understand that
sometimes, even if the message was preached live
to a local audience, there could be someone somewhere
far away who could still benefit from that message
as well. I was with the church for a while. And
for the two years I was handling their podcast
management, there was a difference. There was
a huge difference. And it also impacted on the
way. the pastor himself began to preach because
where he felt, you know, who else would listen
apart from everybody in here? He was able to
expand. on his messages and then also bringing
views that he thought you know would also help
expand the views of his congregation as well
and then he you know he testified of um having
people reach out to him and tell him that they
had his message from miles away and why was that
they found it on spotify Tony, very quick question.
How do people make money in Nigeria with podcasting?
That is the million dollar question. It is the
money question itself. The honest truth is...
They're not making a million dollars, that's
for certain. No, they're not. And then again,
it's kind of a guarded situation. I can only
speak to... What I know for certain, which is
the fact that the successful podcasts are tied
to local networks, which means that the creators
themselves may not even be involved. in the monetization
process. They probably just get paid fees or
salaries like they're coming to regular jobs.
And then all the work is being handled by the
networks themselves. Now, these networks are
the ones who then put the shows on platforms
like Buzzsprout, Acast, RSS .com, and so on,
and then create the relationships with the podcast
advertising agencies who place ads on these shows
and make things work. For the tougher independent
ones, me, for instance, I don't exactly monetize
my show, but there are skills that I exhibit
through my show that enable me to monetize, one
of which is voiceover work that I do. I also
produce podcasts. I also produce... radio commercials
and jingles. So these are like audio adjacent
things I do. I think Dave Jackson says that you
don't monetize podcasts, you monetize your audience.
You monetize the people who you reach through
the podcast, which I think makes a bunch of sense.
Stupid question, Tony. The podcasts that are
in the Nigerian podcast index, are they mostly
listened to in Nigeria itself? Or is there a
diaspora that also listen? Or, you know, how
does that bit work? It's a bit of both. And the
interesting thing is the index doesn't just concern
podcasts created in Nigeria. It actually... It
contains podcasts created by Nigerians abroad.
I found some very interesting ones. There's a
high percentage of diaspora listeners, but the
bulk of listeners are still Nigerians, interestingly.
And many of them, I wouldn't know what class
to put them in now because we really don't have...
the middle class anymore, but many of them are
predisposed to digital or many of them are digitally
savvy. So it's kind of easy. You're talking to
people in universities, you're talking to young
professionals and corporate society, banking,
infrastructure, oil and gas. And, you know, these
are people who are growing up more or less with
the technology. So they're pretty much exposed
to it. Many of them eventually travel and, you
know, The listening is really heavy locally,
but there's a growing audience of listeners abroad,
but probably still Nigerian listeners abroad,
those who miss home and still want a taste of
home without the limits of radio. Well, if you've
got 224 million people who live there. you would
imagine that there are going to be quite a lot
of people that are currently overseas as well.
So there is always that. What's the best way
to get in touch with you? You can obviously find
out more about the Nigerian Podcast Index by
searching the PodNews newsletter. But where else
should people be having a look? The website is
up, NigerianPodcastIndex .com. My email is Tony.
at NigerianPodcastIndex .com. You can find me,
Tony Doe, I'm everywhere. LinkedIn, Instagram,
Xthreads. And if you search Nigerian Podcast
Index slash Tony Doe or whatever, you'll probably
find me lurking somewhere. Tony, thank you so
much. And congratulations by putting together
the index. Thank you, Sam. Thank you so much.
It's been great having our first live guest.
Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, James.
Thank you, Tony. That's super interesting. And
I do think that there's a bunch of really interesting
things going on in parts of the rest of the world
that we don't know too much about. So, yeah,
always, always fascinating.