Reminder: Women are shaping European podcasting 🇪🇺
Eurowaves #33
Hi podcasters,
Spring has finally sprung. Welcome to a new Eurowaves issue.
Before we get into it…
Thank you Unofficial Social Chair for inviting Will Coley and I to a Substack Live conversation about podcast marketing for impact shows.
If you missed it, you can watch the playback here:
In other news, March is Women’s History Month.
To celebrate, all interviews and curations this month will be brought to you by fantastic women in the podcasting industry.
Kicking off with an interview with Aiwan Obinyan and German podcast recommendations curated by Cecilia Gigliotti.
There are also unmissable events coming up all over Europe dedicated to women, including Content is Queen’s International Women’s Podcast Festival (yesterday, March 5) and Italy’s Tutte Abbiamo Voce (March 21, more details below).
🇪🇺 Podcasting & Community News 🇪🇺
🎉Lory Martinez, the founder of beloved Studio Ochenta that closed last year, just launched her new venture: Maraviya - a brand strategy studio helping multicultural founders, creators, and entrepreneurs turn their ideas into clear, meaningful brands.
🇬🇧The first wave of The Podcast Show speakers have been announced, including yours truly. See you there?
🇫🇷📕 New podcasting book alert: Les secrets de l’interview: Anonymes et personnes ordinaires à la radio et en podcast (The Secrets of Interviewing: Anonymous and Ordinary People on Radio and Podcasts), written by Christophe Deleu.
🇪🇸Clara Tiscar, the leading Spanish-language voice in true crime,
is premiering the ninth season of Criminopatía. This launch comes with news that her loyal listeners have been eagerly awaiting: “Criminopatía en directo, con Clara Tiscar”, starting on April 12 in Madrid.
🇩🇪🇲🇾A new podcast by German-based Malaysian Miho Soon, Money Trauma, launches today March 6. The show challenges the many misconceptions about money behaviours.
🇵🇹Portugal’s Podes winners have also been announced.
🌎Ambies winners have been announced and Captain Ron - Great Pods put together a comprehensive list.
✈️The Podcast Index tells us that only 55% of podcasts are in English - with Spanish (14%), Portuguese (5.7%), French (2.5%) and German (2.5%) comprising the top 5. (source: Podnews)
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“The Niche Within The Universal” Stories 🌏 with Aiwan Obinyan
Aiwan Obinyan is co-host of Rigour & Flow with Aiwan and Tamanda and Exec-Producer/Director at AiAi Studios, a multi-disciplinary production company working across podcasts, film, TV, and music. Specializing in sound design and documentary work, she builds projects around community-centered storytelling that refuses to extract - with credits including BAFTA-winning productions.
Photo credit: Ru Parker-Harbord
You can connect with Aiwan on LinkedIn here.
What’s your podcasting origin story?
I adored podcasts long before I knew the term podcasts. I listened to my “podcasts” on good old Apple iTunes. My top shows were very utilitarian, non-fiction shows, including Dan Miller’s 48 Days to the Work You Love (10 points if you can guess what I was working towards) and Desi Serna’s Guitar Music Theory. A few years rolled by and I remember a partner at the time said, “you have to listen to this new show Serial, it’s crazy?!” I pressed play on the series and to say I was blown away would be an understatement. I’d never heard anything like it: a gripping and immersive true crime documentary but for your ears. My curiosity was piqued.
It took a few years for my podcast production journey to begin. In 2019, I cut my teeth on the iconic gal-dem magazine’s flagship show, Growing up with gal-dem: recording, editing, repairing audio, mixing, mastering and learning how to record remotely when the pandemic hit in 2020. It was a steep learning curve but over time I became the producer and then the executive producer. It’s a show I hold close to my heart til this day because of the perfect alignment with my values, creative inclinations and technical interests.
How does your background in film change the way you approach audio intimacy?
My ears are stronger than my eyes. They always have been. My start in the entertainment industry was through music. My goal was to be an MC and a producer, so I studied Music Technology & Production at Leeds College of Music and Leeds Beckett University. I’ve always been an audio first kind of person.
Making documentary films came through my time as a location sound recordist and audio post-production engineer and sound designer. Watching the way stories came to life, morphing and evolving as each member of the production and post-production teams added their own unique stamp and talents to the story, got me thinking about the ways I told stories through music and the many stories yet to be told within my community. So I borrowed a friend’s camera and started shooting my first “short” documentary that turned into a feature.
But the audio engineer never dies. Sound design, music and immersive field recordings have always been something I take seriously and dedicate time to developing. That’s what I’ve carried into podcasting. A show like Rigour & Flow - the podcast I co-host with Dr Tamanda Walker, now in its fourth season - is conversational and intimate, which is one of my favourite formats and one where there’s still loads of room for innovation. There’s also room for subtle, tasteful sound design and actuality that enhances the conversation and brings worlds and words to life.
What’s your number one advice for podcasters looking to go independent and have autonomy over storytelling and their voices?
Practice. When I was learning guitar, someone told me: “First you copy, then you create.” Meaning, study the greats and try to emulate them and understand how they do what they do and why it works. How do they get that specific audio effect? How did they build that specific sound design cue? Why does that particular line of dialogue work so well? Why does the narrative flow so well? You copy enough and it becomes a part of your muscle memory. Then you can start to create, find your voice.
Experiment. Build your own sound, voice, style. It’s important to know who you are and what you want to be and say in this world. That becomes the foundation and driving force, the mission of your career and identity as a creative.
Build it regardless. Don’t wait for someone to give you the money or permission. Just build the thing you want to build with the resources you have. When they - whoever they are - come running, you will be established, strong in your creative voice and identity, and then “they” have to join your party rather than you begging to get into theirs.
Your work with AiAi Studios has always been multicultural and international. How do you think podcasters can use podcasting to connect local stories with a wider international audience without losing the soul of it?
A few years back when working with GAY TIMES on their entertainment offering, the thing that kept coming back to me was the idea of “the niche within the universal.” (I should probably trademark this!)
Working in an industry where you are the minority and where your stories are seen as either “too specific” or “not a priority”, the focus then has to be how can I maintain my authenticity while delivering something that wider audiences can relate to. Real, honest, niche stories and characters that speak to universal human experiences.
So when sourcing or telling stories, I’m always asking: what is universal about this very specific character? What feelings are really common here?
It’s the approach we take across everything at AiAi Studios and at Roots & Rigour, our research arm - whether we’re making a podcast, a documentary series or working with communities to turn their lived experience into creative outputs. The specificity is the strength. A community researcher in South London talking about trust and belonging isn’t a niche story - it’s a human one.
What’s your 2026 podcasting prediction and what’s one thing you hope will change?
I think AI will move from dodgy experiment to par for the course, and with that, it will become a mark of credibility for podcasters to state clearly and upfront when and how AI was used in the making of a show. We’re already seeing that in its early stages with the Netflix documentary series The Investigation of Lucy Letby, where they used AI to recreate contributors with a small on-screen title explaining what they’d done. Transparency will matter.
I have to use the “V” word. Yes, video will dominate, and YouTube will dominate the video podcast space. I think that’s fairly obvious at this point.
What excites me more is the growth in international podcast ad spending as regional networks mature. Local-language educational and lifestyle podcasts are growing faster than English-language business shows in emerging regions like China and Latin America. That’s really exciting for us at AiAi Studios because we’ve always been global in our outlook and international in our identity, style and values.
Share one underrated podcast with us.
The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast by Nigel Levy is a treasure trove. Despite having made documentaries for almost a decade, I’ve learnt so much about the intricacies of documentary filmmaking from this show. Hearing how other filmmakers approach the creative and technical process is food for my brain. No matter your experience level there is something in this show for you.
Thank you, Aiwan!
🎙️🌍 Podcast Recommendations 🌍🎙️
Hosted by POLITICO's chief EU correspondent, Zoya Sheftalovich, the podcast runs Monday through Thursday, offering a clear, reporting-driven guide to EU politics in under 15 minutes. It’s a perfect companion for your morning coffee. Each episode takes listeners inside the decisions, power shifts and debates shaping the day in Brussels — and explains how they connect to national capitals across Europe. On Fridays, the same feed features a longer episode that goes deeper into the week’s biggest themes, offering context and analysis beyond the daily news cycle — with Sarah Wheaton behind the mic.
Conversations with first-generation immigrant women building new lives from scratch. Every episode explores real decisions, tensions, and transformations behind leaving home, starting over, and figuring out who they are in places that don’t always see them clearly. Guests are international, including from European countries like Italy and Ireland.
The 30+ Podcast, discussing prevalent topics concerning the Black British Diaspora. From Entrepreneurship, Spirtuality and Relationships, to everything else in-between. Hosted by Asante Royal. They just stepped into a new season with a refreshed studio and elevated production, and they were recently recognised as a Mainstream Ones to Watch 2026 award winner.
Want to see your podcast recommended?
🇩🇪 Podcasts from Germany 🇩🇪
Cecilia Gigliotti is the creator and co-host of Pod Sounds, a show that has analyzed two classic pop albums so far. Much of her favorite media is about other types of media: podcasts about movies, books about art. Find her work on Linktree.
Ms. Informed is co-hosted by Madhvi Ramani and Rina Grob, two multitalented fixtures on the Berlin creative scene. The show engages with politics, feminism, literature, and the issues that don’t get the attention they deserve. It’s augmented by a Substack chronicle of what the hosts are reading, watching, and thinking about (their taste is top-shelf). In short, the recommendation that keeps on recommending.
Ms. Informed wird gemeinsam von Madhvi Ramani und Rina Grob moderiert, zwei vielseitigen Persönlichkeiten der Berliner Kreativszene. Die Sendung diskutiert Politik, Feminismus, Literatur und Themen, die nicht die richtige Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. Ergänzt durch eine Substack-Chronik, in der die Moderatorinnen über ihre Lese-, Film- und Gedankenwelt berichten (ihr Geschmack ist erstklassig). Kurz gesagt: eine Empfehlung, die weitere Empfehlungen macht.
Thoroughly Kinky: A Kinks Podcast is a show whose genesis I was privileged to witness as my friend and fellow musician Liam Porter conceived and then realized it. His and his co-host Adam Smith’s knowledge of the Kinks’ catalogue is formidable, but their easy chat has a broad appeal. For both music heads and those looking to get into good music, these are your guys.
Thoroughly Kinky: A Kinks Podcast ist eine Sendung, deren Anfänge ich erleben durfte, als mein Freund und Musikerkollege Liam Porter sie konzipierte und dann realisierte. Sein Wissen und das seines Co-Moderators Adam Smith über das Repertoire der Kinks ist beeindruckend, aber ihre lockere Art zu plaudern ist für jeden ansprechend. Sowohl für Musikfans als auch für diejenigen, die gute Musik entdecken möchten, sind diese beiden genau die richtigen Ansprechpartner.
The Dead Ladies Show is both a podcast and a live show. A friend and I attended once a few years ago and it has stuck with me. Each guest delivers a biography of an interesting deceased woman from history—there are scientists, activists, thespians, and everything in between. I love getting a window as much into the presenters as into the women they are presenting. Their choices say a lot about them!
Die Dead Ladies Show ist ein Podcast und auch eine Live-Show. Vor einigen Jahren habe ich sie zusammen mit einer Freundin besucht, und sie ist mir bis heute in Erinnerung geblieben. Jeder Gast präsentiert die Biografie einer interessanten verstorbenen Frau aus der Geschichte—Wissenschaftlerinnen, Aktivistinnen, Schauspielerinnen und alles dazwischen. Ich finde es spannend, sowohl einen Einblick in die Moderatorinnen als auch in die von ihnen vorgestellten Frauen zu bekommen. Ihre Auswahl sagt viel über sie aus!
Thank you, Cecilia!
You can connect with her on LinkedIn here.
🚀Events and Opportunities🚀
The Norwegian Podcast Association invites you to an open and informal industry evening at Kulturhuset. Here we bring together podcast managers and key production environments for a constructive conversation about the status of the industry, challenges and possible solutions. This meeting is open to everyone, even those who are not members of NPF. Absolutely everyone who enjoys podcasts and industry talk is most welcome.
When? March 17.
This award-winning European Cross-border Grant programme (running since 2009) supports cross-border teams of professional journalists and/or news outlets who have strong ideas for cross-border investigations and for research on European topics. Journalismfund Europe supports costs related to journalistic research for types of media formats, which could not be covered without the grant support. This can include travel, translation, access to pay-databases and/or time to pursue the research. For this grant programme, there are four application rounds scheduled in 2026: March 19, May 21, July 30 and October 1st.
When? March 19.
Tutte Abbiamo Voce (Milan, Italy)
Milan hosts Italy’s first national event dedicated to women in podcasting. Conceived by the collective of the same name, the event aims to shift the conversation on the gender gap from an ethical issue to an industrial opportunity. The event will feature four thematic panels and an exclusive masterclass. Closing the day, the winners of LaPodstar will be announced—an award dedicated to podcasts with high social and cultural impact hosted by women.
The full program is currently being finalized and will be available on the website.
Deadline? March 21.
That’s it for now!
Andreea