This Indian Life

Years ago cohosting a podcast in India bore a striking resemblance to writing a telegram if one of the hosts resided in a different country The technological challenges were almost comical Canadabased Aditya Mhatre who cofounded Indicast with Thanebased Abhishek Kumar remembers the longrunning podcastrsquos initial days of recording via Skype as being a ldquochallengerdquo ldquoI was at that time based in the US so I didnrsquot face any issuesBut there were so many times we had to postpone recording because say the connection was not clear enough because of the rains in Mumbai Abhishek and I often had to say lsquoStoprsquo at the end of our sentences so that the other person would know when to start speakingrdquo chuckles Mhatre There were other challenges as well ldquoThe audio content for instance had to be in RSS format on iTunes and other platforms RSS has evolved now but back then I had to manually write itrdquo he addsIndicastrsquos Abhishek Kumar and Aditya MhatreBut that was in 2005 exactly 10 years ago when the earliest set of Indian podcasts took tentative steps into the world of podcasting Besides Indicast there was Podmasti often credited as the first podcast in the Indian domain Founder Ruchita Gupta remembers how difficult it was to explain what a podcast was to her acquaintances They simply didnrsquot get it ldquoIn the end I told them that it is something like Internet radiordquo she laughsAudiomaticinrsquos Rajesh TahilSign of new timesNeedless to say podcasts have come a long way since then One of the latest Indian podcasts Audiomaticin was launched on April 8 and with it comes small yet perceivable changes in this niche industry For one there might be a shift towards more networkbased podcasts ldquoThe networkbased model is inevitable and can provide the platform to nurture and guide individual talent and provide them with the tools and the network support to make individual podcasts commercially viablerdquo says Rajesh Tahil founder of Audiomaticin ldquoAs more and more people have smart phones with affordable data packs on them and as listening habits change there is a potential for podcasts to go big in India Urban India is a huge market If a US podcast can have five million listeners surely we can have one that has halfamillionrdquo he says adding that Audiomaticin has so far attracted 80000 listeners in three weeksTariq Ansari media entrepreneur Unlike most other podcasts Audiomaticin is also genrebending mdash there is Aakar Patel talking about current affairs journalists Samanth Subramanian and Padmaparna Ghosh covering science their first podcast was about the rare Bombay Blood Group and Vikram Doctor for food ldquoWe have an upcoming weekly comedy show with Anuvab Pal and Kunal Roy Kapurrdquo adds Tahil The network also plans to host podcasts by individuals or other media companies that are not necessarily produced by them in the future ldquoThere will obviously be a stringent approach to ensure the qualityrdquo he addsPodcastsrsquo revenue modelSeason one of the global hit Serial reconstructed the case of the murder of a college girl in Baltimore in 1999 For its second season due out this year the makers reached out to fans for funds last year The showrsquos executive producer Julie Snyder explained that they have to ldquofigure out a way to standrdquo on their ownThere have been other encouraging developments however mdash according to media reports heavyweight brands such as HBO and Random House have taken note of podcast advertising and sponsorshipsMeanwhile in India podcasts are largely sponsored by companies that have a target audience similar to that of the podcasts mdash people who are online for starters Indicast for instance was initially funded by travel companies money transfer companies and the NRI division of banks as the podcast had a strong international presence ldquoOne of our sponsors was a company which created personalised photo prints often gifted by people to their friends and family abroad Wersquod provide our advertisers with information such as the number of downloads and the country of origin of such downloads Wersquod then get paid based on each download per download So for instance 2000 downloads of an episode would translate to Rs 10000 at Rs 5 per episoderdquo explains Indicastrsquos Abhishek KumarToday the podcast has a tieup with Forbes India Here they create content for the magazinersquos podcasts where the editionrsquos cover story writer or other major storiesrsquo writers are interviewed ldquoThe podcasts give readers a sample of the magazine before it hits the standsrdquo explains Deepak Ajwani Deputy Editor and Editor Online at Forbes India adding that Forbes India opted for podcasts keeping in mind the magazinersquos multimedia approach and digital presencePodmasti which focussed on Bollywood among other topics synced Google ads into the podcast explains Ruchitarsquos husband Mahadev ldquoWe were able to start earning 100150 per month by the middle of 2005 Within six months our podcast was in iTunes and we crossed more than 500 listenersrdquo he elaborates However the duo moved out of the podcast in 2007 as ldquopodcasting technology started going down as iPhone was launched by Steve Jobs in June 2007rdquoadds MahadevMedia entrepreneur and Audiomaticin founder Tariq Ansari explains that podcasts work on two models mdash one is based on sponsors and the other on subscribers He opines that in a place where people are used to consuming free onlinecontent a subscriptionbased model of producing podcasts is still a long way away ldquoI donrsquot see people being willing to pay in the foreseeable future So the lineup of sponsors should be such that you can maintain your editorial integrityrdquo points out AnsariAdult contentArguably the most popular comedy collective today All India Bakchod AIB started out with a series of podcasts hosted by founders Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat ldquoWe were huge fans of the podcast WTF with Marc Maronrdquo explains Bhat The AIB podcasts interviewed comedians such as Raju Shrivastav and Johnny LeverThe collective often dubbed lsquoa YouTube sensationrsquo turned to the visual medium soon after but Bhat explains that although their last podcast was released six months ago they are not keen on abandoning the medium ldquoDuring a podcast interview people tend to be more open as cameras can be a bit intimidating I remember at one point during the interview Johnny Lever got up with the mike while talkingrdquo chuckles Bhat ldquoWith podcasts you get attached to the voice and there is a personal connect Which other medium can do thatrdquo he asksHowever their journey was punctuated by hiccups Apple India for instance blocked their content on iTunes here as it does not host adult content ldquoWTF our podcasts everything was blocked So you had to listen to it from the US iTunes storerdquo explains Bhat This is true of the lsquoadultrsquo podcast KaanMasti as well According to its website lsquoitrsquos a bit of a pain getting Kaanmasti on an Apple Device right now because Apple doesnrsquot host explicit content on the Indian StorersquoThe futureSo what does the future look like for homegrown podcasts Tahil explains that the medium has huge potential to go big ldquoWe already have a significant niche audience here that watches smaller independent films and TV shows such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad and are exposed to NPR etc through online radio This is the likely audience for a podcast platform as well initially The only challenge is that we have no exposure to podcasts or have a tradition of public radio unlike in the UK and US Hence this will take some time but it will happenrdquo he concludes