🇪🇸PRISA Audio’s Ana Ribera GarcÃa-Rubio on The Spanish Podcasting Ecosystem 🇪🇸
Eurowaves #4 Interview
The first time I had a call with Ana, it slowly transitioned from introducing ourselves to full-on nerding out about what podcasts we were listening to, what’s next in our queue, and what needs to be dug out of there. We could have gone on and on for hours. Ana is a gem in the podcasting industry not only because of her expertise, but because she truly loves the medium. You have to love podcasts to understand them: how to make them, how to market them, and how to grow the industry in the long run. She also has an infectious positive energy, it’s always a pleasure to chat with her!
In this interview, you’ll learn about the Spanish podcasting industry, from its inception to the most popular genres (which might surprise you) and what makes it unique. There’s so much we can learn from it.
Ana Ribera GarcÃa-Rubio is Editor-in-Chief of Prisa Audio, where she manages and edits podcasts for Prisa Audio brands in Spain and Latin America, and Coordinator and Executive Producer of WePod, a transnational podcast production collaboration with nine partners from seven European countries. Drawing on more than 20 years’ media production experience, Ana established collaboration processes among different Prisa Audio brands to stimulate the creativity of podcast professionals and produce the best audio projects in Spanish.
What makes Spain’s podcasting ecosystem unique, and what would you say other countries can learn from it?
The podcast ecosystem in Spain is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, in Europe outside the Anglo-Saxon countries. Since 2015, and especially in 2016 with the creation of Podium Podcast (a label created by Prisa for the production of original podcasts), an industry has begun to take shape, and an audience for this medium has begun to consolidate. Another thing that makes the Spanish podcast industry unique in Europe is the reach that we have in many other parts of the world, especially in Latin America, thanks to the language.
Another aspect that distinguishes the Spanish podcast ecosystem is that it emerged 10 years ago, we could say, through the most difficult: fiction or narrative non-fiction podcasts, with projects like Le Llamaban Padre (2017) or Guerra 3 (2018). Productions like these have joined an amateur ecosystem of conversational programming that has gradually become more professional.
I believe that, in order to bridge the gap, other European countries can look at the fiction produced in Spain that has travelled very well in audiovisual versions or even in other languages, as in the case of Titania (Banco Santander branded podcast), a fiction that already has its English version for the Anglo-Saxon market, and in the search for co-productions between countries that enrich the projects and give them visibility beyond the networks themselves.
How does PRISA Audio foster collaboration across brands to produce standout audio projects?
Working with brands takes time, patience, and a bold yet didactic approach.
Brands are conservative by nature, and podcasts are an advertising medium that they feel a bit intimidated by. They don't control it in the same way that they control press ads, radio spots, or advertising campaigns, so it's necessary to start with a didactic approach to the specifics of the format, its strengths, and what can be expected from it beyond a quantitative KPI that goes beyond downloads.
Original approaches that go beyond pure promotion are the ones that work best for the listener and create a much more effective identification with the brand and brand recognition than the so-called "advertorial." The first sound fiction for brand promotion in Spain, Titania (Banco Santander), was such a success with the audience that many other brands have seen the potential and are now daring to try riskier formats. For example, what I call the "sound tourism thriller" is currently very strong in Spain, with the launch of many fictional podcasts paid for by tourist boards or regions to promote tourism in their area. We have Simulacro (Canary Islands), Blum (also available in English, Switzerland), Un secreto en Bretaña, el viaje que lo cambió todo, etc.
What storytelling techniques from Spanish podcasts could inspire podcasters globally?
More than 572 million people in the world speak Spanish, of which 477 million are native speakers. Spanish podcast creators know that their podcasts will reach an audience beyond their borders, from Spain to Latin America and vice versa. Podcasts, especially narrative podcasts, travel back and forth, allowing both professionals and listeners to learn from other places, not only in terms of stories and themes but also in terms of production, distribution, and marketing formats. Of course, co-production partnerships that work in the same language and share some cultural similarities make such collaboration much easier.
Thinking about a listener with whom you share a language but not all the cultural, social, geographical, or economic references has an impact on the way you write, on the way you tell things so that no listener is left out. A very good example of this is Radio Ambulante, with its stories from Latin America, suitable for anyone who knows Spanish, or, more recently, Sin control. El universo de Javier Milei, a podcast that explains the figure and government of the Argentine journalist to any listener, not necessarily Argentine.
How do you see podcasting in Spain and Latin America evolving in the next few years?
I believe that podcasting in Spanish, in Spain and in Latin America, will continue to grow. It will not be without suffering, but I believe that both the conversational format, increasingly supported by video, as well as narrative non-fiction and fiction, will continue to grow in volume and number of listeners. I am optimistic and convinced that the Spanish-speaking listening community will become increasingly curious about what is being produced beyond its borders, which will encourage the collaboration between the industries on both sides of the Atlantic that has already begun but will gradually consolidate. In addition, and despite the fact that I am not a big fan of video podcasts, this format will be very good for the recognition of certain podcasters who are already famous in Mexico, Argentina, or Spain in other countries.
I am also convinced that the listener who comes to the format because of a celebrity or a particular conversational podcast will gradually progress in his or her love of the format, looking for different content and taking steps to start listening to narrative non-fiction podcasts. I always explain that getting into the podcast format is a bit like starting to read again: you start with what you like, what is familiar territory — a conversational podcast with someone you know, a humour podcast, like the children’s or young adult books we were addicted to when we started. Then, little by little, tastes mature, the podcasts themselves can be cross-promoted, and from there we move on to other formats, let’s call them more ‘difficult,’ or rather, more demanding for some listeners. With non-fiction, it is always a question of starting with a subject that interests you.
Share a few of your absolute favorite podcasts but they can’t be ones you worked on!
La Casa Grande. For me, the best podcast of 2024 in Spanish. It is a podcast about abuse and coercive control in couples, thanks to the testimonies of women who have been sheltered in the pioneering centre for abused women in Spain. It's a tough podcast, but it answers the eternal question of those who don’t know: why didn’t the woman leave if he was abusing her? Shocking, but a must-listen. Its creator, Isabel Coello, has been working independently on this project for 3 years.
Hechos Reales. Independent stories on topics as diverse as the life of Bin Laden's son in France, Facebook content moderators, the story of the Spanish engineers who landed a man on the moon, Spanish mercenaries in Ukraine, and the story of a terrorist who is now out of prison by day and working as a psychologist.
Radio Ambulante, a classic in Spanish with Daniel Alarcón at the helm. Since 2016, they have been telling stories about Latin America in Spanish and have created a very characteristic way of storytelling. A must if you want to get to know Latam.
A discovery of the past year, a very strange but captivating fiction: Modes of Thought of Anterran Literature. It's a wonderfully written piece, which has the undeniable merit of being challenging to listen to.
This year, I loved Hysterical, but Dan Taberski is always a guarantee of quality. Dan Taberski is a wonderful storyteller; he writes so well for audio that after listening to him for half a minute, you forget that he is following a script and get hooked on his way of narrating—so oral, so vivid, so natural. He has also mastered the art of interviewing, and you can tell because his interviewees sound relaxed, comfortable, at ease, answering all the questions Taberski asks them, which are many of the questions that will come to mind as you listen to him. He also has no qualms about asking and re-asking questions twenty times or asking for clarification until whatever it is, is clear. He talks to everyone, everyone involved. On top of all that, Taberski has a very clever sense of humor, and he knows how to gradually build up to being funny without going over the top. Hysterical is a spectacular podcast because it takes you to places you don’t expect, starting with an event that doesn’t interest you.
And from Australia, fresh from the start of Donald Trump’s administration, I think it’s essential to listen to The Dark Shining Moment Countercast, a podcast that explains how the phenomenon of disinformation began in Russia and how we got here, to fascism on our doorstep, pushing its way in.