🎙️🗺️Europod’s Alexander Damiano Ricci on building international podcasting connections🗺️🎙️
Alexander Damiano Ricci is Founding member, Chief operating officer and Editorial director at Europod. He is one of the ideators of the WePod project, which he runs as production coordinator. Before pivoting to podcasts, he worked on developing the video-focused independent media network, Sphera, and, as a freelance written journalist reporter, for Italian and international media outlets.
What made you pivot from traditional journalism to podcasting? Why do you think that's a common transition and trend for European podcasters?
I started to produce podcasts in 2018 after meeting Antoine Lheureux, founder and CEO of Europod (at the time, called Bulle Media). I must admit it all started rather casually, as a common friend, Simone Benazzo from the ULB put us in touch. I was coming from both media project development for a French non-profit as well as freelance reporting (mainly reportage stories) for Italian and international media organisations. I had also spent some good time doing data journalism for the European Data Journalism Network. So, for me, starting podcasts was more about exploring a new potential journalistic skill and income avenue as a European freelancer.
From there, it has been a rather extraordinary walk, as podcasting eventually took over completely my professional life. Together with Antoine, we brought Bulle Media from being literally a garage-project based on two people, to a small dynamic company providing working opportunities for a lot of other people across Europe. We found a few initial clients for whom we produced podcasts at a very competitive price, then we kicked-off a first major collaboration with an Italian media company - Jungle Europa podcast in 2019 for Repubblica - which I guess put us on the radar of other potential clients. The next step was being selected as a service provider by an institutional client within the Brussels EU bubble: the European Economic and Social Committee, for whom we produced the podcast series The Grassroots View. And from there it has been basically more of the same, with the crucial addition of leading European projects experimenting with multilingual products and co-productions.
What’s the most unexpected story you’ve helped bring to life through Europod co-productions?
Oh, I don't know whether our stories are unexpected, but I'd dare to say we had the chance to produce some original stories. In terms of co-production, probably #108 - The Fall of Press Freedom in Greece was the first major co-production. And I believe it was also about a topic little dealt with in mainstream news/podcast production. But on top of that, I should probably mention also the most recent co-productions which deal with some very distinctive topics and stories, such as Vie de routier-e-s (FR & ES, a podcast series on the life and economy of truck drivers in Europe, soon to be published also in English language) and Sea of Rage, which is a medley/adaptation of the original podcast series Mar de rabia & Mare di rabbia (ES, IT), co-produced by Podium Podcast and Chora Media (this one deals with the lives of ordinary people in the two places drugs hashish and cocaine enter into Europe). But really without wanting to brag here, there are many more which can be found on europod.eu.
What do you think makes a podcast uniquely European? Is it the topics, the voices, or something else entirely?
Oh, that's a tough one. The point is that, in general, so not only in podcasting, it's difficult to say what "uniquely European" means. Europe is a continent full of different languages and traditions. So, I guess, it is very difficult to say. It would be easier to say how a specific podcast is in line with trends in a specific European country, for instance. So, say how this or that sounds very "French" or "Spanish", etc. It's not a way of running away from the question, but ... really, I guess we are still trying to find out what European means more broadly, than for podcasting specifically.
Are there ways that European podcasters can build connections with international podcasting spaces (English-speaking and beyond)? What are your thoughts on that?
Well, this is linked somehow to the previous question and answer. So, I'd say this: as podcast series are, usually, very nation-specific in terms of cultural references and the likes, connecting with the international podcast scene means, to some extent, also simplifying the content of a podcasts series. What I am trying to say is that it's kind of difficult to write a narrative series (say, non-fiction), about something that happened in a given country (thus, region and city) in the same way for both a national and international audience. So, there are to ways to go: either trying to tackle a story, from the outset, in a way that it can make sense to a national and international audience (for instance, that's we tried to do with Vie de routier-e-s), or adapt a national content to an international audience, through a remake/adaptation (that's more what we tried to do with Sea of Rage). Now, that's all content-related of course. But then, I guess, there is the "issue" of being properly networked in the listening-platform universe (so Spotify, Apple Podcast, Pocket Casts, etc.) and the broader space of podcast-marketing influencers, which, again, is pretty US-based / driven. That's something European podcast production companies cannot overlook.
If you could tell pre-podcaster Alexander one piece of advice about navigating this industry, what would it be?
Mmm... I guess, the one piece of advice would be to follow a number - say 5 to 10 - newsletters about the podcast industry regularly, to keep track of the evolution of the podcast market and industry. Because producing content and distributing it does not happen in a void. Podcasting is a lot about networking and building relationships. You might produce the most incredible show, but pushing it out on the platforms will not do the trick for you. So, yeah: I would have loved to know - or have a better understanding - from the beginning, that the success of a show lies 50% in content and 50% in marketing it properly. I believe this can help new and upcoming podcasters not fall in the frustration trap of high-work-intensity unmatched by visible outcomes.