Podcast  

Sounds like Europe

The rise of podcasts in recent years has led to the exploration of new narratives and formats. There are more and more podcasts with a large fanbase and they take advantage of this by involving their audience and making them part of their recordings.  Involving the audience in a podcast makes it unique and unpredictable. Therefore, producing this kind of podcasts is not an easy task. To further explore this issue, Javi Caminero is joined by Fanny Cohen Moreau, journalist and podcast producer.

For some time now, the most successful books have also been available in audio version, something that allows them to reach a wider audience or to facilitate their consumption for those who want to read them but cannot do so due to a lack of time. To understand the current state of audiobooks in Europe, Javi Caminero is joined by one of the leading experts on the subject, Javier Celaya.

More and more people are listening to podcasts, and that translates into interest from brands and sponsored content.  A very clear example of how branded content has made its way into podcasting in recent years is Blum, an audio thriller sponsored by Switzerland Tourism and produced by the Spanish production company El Extraordinario. To find out more about Blum and the state of branded podcasting in Europe, Javi Caminero is joined by Marcus Hurst, Creative Director of El Extraordinario.

Is it easy to thrive in Portugal for independent podcast producers? What does the future hold for podcasting there? On this episode of Sounds Like Europe, Javi Caminero is joined by Luís Sousa, Content Director at Bruá Podcasts, to understand better the landscape and current status of the podcasting industry in Portugal.  Listen to Luís’ recommendations.

In this episode, host Javi Caminero tries to find out what the relationship between podcasts and mainstream radio is like in some of the countries with the biggest podcast markets in Europe. To do this, he talks to Bertrand Spinelli, Director of Skyrock Public in France; Andrea de Cesco, Director of Chora Academy at Chora Media in Italy; and Ana Alonso, head of SER Podcast in Spain. 

Podcasts can be very useful when it comes to analyzing a society. That’s why we’d like to dedicate some episodes of Sounds Like Europe to dive into the insights of podcasting in different countries of Europe. In this episode, Javi Caminero is joined by Márton Bede, Hungarian journalist and podcaster from 444, our Hungarian partner in the WePod project. 

It’s been now more than four months since we began this adventure. Many of our cross-border productions are already underway and we are lucky enough to see them unfold and grow. Our colleagues of the University Roma Tre are playing a crucial role documenting everything related with the WePod Project and the process of every coproduction. In this episode, Javi Caminero is joined by Marta Perrotta, professor and investigator at he University Roma Tre.  

Finding a new podcast to listen can be a challenging task. To discuss which are the best ways to discover new podcasts, Javi Caminero is joined by Andrea de Cesco, Director of Chora Academy at Chora Media, our italian partner in the WePod project, and founder of ‘Questioni d’orecchio’, the first italian newsletter dedicated to podcasts. 

Podcasts can be a very useful tool to learn new things. They can also be funny, engaging, or exciting. Podcasts can talk to kids about things they know or introduce them to a wide range of unimaginable topics. To understand how a good podcast can impact a kid’s mind, Javi Caminero talks to Dan Simpson, host of one of the UK’s biggest kids and family podcasts: ‘Fun Kids Science Weekly’. 

Podcasts are now more complex than ever. We are used to listening to amazing documentaries or fictions that are possible thanks to the hard work of producers, sound designers, scriptwriters... However, having a great soundtrack can be crucial when it comes to creating a unique podcast. To understand everything regarding this matter, Javi Caminero is joined by Luca Micheli, Sound Director and Head of Music at Chora Media, our Italian partner in the WePod project.  

Podcasts have become a global phenomenon. However, the success of a podcast is heavily conditioned by its social context. The formats that are huge hits in Spain could be less successful in Poland, or Ireland. On this episode, Javi Caminero is joined by Edu Alonso, Head of Podcast for Southern and Eastern Europe at Spotify, to understand how the European audience listens to podcasts.

In this episode of 'Sounds Like Europe' we tackle a very important topic: the intersection of press freedom and the podcasting industry in the Balkans.

To analyse this issue, Javi Caminero is joined by News Decoder journalist Andrea Knezevic and Ljudmila Jankovic, a journalist for the Press Freedom Foundation in Serbia. 

In this first episode of 'Sounds Like Europe' we look for the answer of a very important question: How do you start a cross-border podcast?

Now, four months into the WePod project, two co-productions are already underway. To explain how you manage to coordinate a cross-border podcast collaboration, our host Javi Caminero talks to Alexander Damiano Ricci, Chief Operating Officer of Bulle Media and coordinator of the WePod project.