Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer have all thrown their considerable weight behind podcasts – investing in podcasting companies and/or bankrolling new podcast titles to create a broader and hybrid listening experience for users.
In India, Gaana also has the smell of the podcasting revolution in its nostrils – and it is going in big, saying it will bring 3,000 new podcast titles to the service in the next four months, all under the umbrella of ‘Gaana Originals’.
Famous names like Bollywood star Sunny Leone, comedian Zakir Khan, paranormal investigator Jay Alani and actor/VJ Ranvijay Singh are among the names signed up.
CEO Prashan Agarwal has bullish forecasts for the impact of podcasts on Gaana, saying it hopes to quickly make podcasts 1.5% of total listening time on the streaming service and build sharply from there. “Just to give you a perspective, currently, we do about 3.2 billion streams,” he told Business Insider India. “On the podcasts, we are looking at getting to about 100 million streams. That could be about 10 crore podcast play-outs per month by March.”
The podcasting focus on Gaana will be around three distinct categories – comedy, storytelling and retro Hindi songs – and they will also be made free, with advertising served around them.
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We have been producing a fortnightly comedy chat show called Me and my Dad which is available on all major platforms and has a growing following amongst kids and young parents. Can we upload the podcast onto Gaana?