Black and Latino audiences drive podcast growth, but ownership lags
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Angel Livas interviews Dawn Myers during a live taping of the debut episode of ALIVE & WELL at ALIVE Studios in Washington, D.C. Photo: Drez Digitalz
Black and Hispanic audiences are among the fastest-growing groups in podcasting, pushing the medium past talk radio in share of spoken-word listening.
Why it matters: As podcasting becomes mainstream, many creators — especially those who are Black or brown — are building audiences on platforms they don't control.
- Juleyka Lantigua, an exception as a Latina owner, launched the podcast production company LWC Studios in 2017. She said when creators from fast-growing audiences don't own their work, they risk generating cultural value while capturing only a fraction of the revenue.
- "Ownership is destiny," she said. "The only way to secure a long-term future for an idea is to own the means of production and distribution."
State of play: Distribution and monetization in podcasting are largely controlled by platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
- Many podcast networks — including companies like iHeartMedia — rely on those platforms to distribute and monetize their shows.
- Black and Latino listeners having been "some of the biggest drivers behind podcast consumption growth," researcher Gabriel Soto, of Eden Research, told Axios.
- Eden tracks audio trends in its long-running Infinite Dial study and logs listening via consumer media diaries that record time spent on podcasts, streaming audio and radio.
Zoom in: Latino audiences tend to over-index on podcast listening in part because the population skews younger, Soto said.
- Black audiences also report spending "about an hour more per day with audio than the rest of the U.S. population."
- That engagement has made podcast audiences especially attractive to advertisers and media companies seeking to reach younger, more diverse listeners.
Black network owners, though few, are also looking to occupy positions of control in the podcasting space.
- Radio host Charlamagne Tha God founded the Black Effect Podcast Network in 2020 hoping the network would become the "BET of podcasting" — a long-term home for Black-owned shows.
- Washington media entrepreneur Angel Livas launched Alive Podcast Network in 2022 with two shows. It now hosts more than 100 podcasts on platforms including Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and Samsung TV.
- The network operates a mobile platform and subscription model, with half of the $4.99 monthly fee going to a creator the listener selects, and Livas is opening Alive Studios, a production hub in downtown Washington.
What she's saying: "We've spent years helping creators build their shows," Livas said. "Now the focus is making sure they have a platform where they can actually own what they create."
- Livas is also launching her own podcast, which debuted last week and will feature a different guest throughout the month.
- "The future of podcasting isn't just distribution," she said. "It's ownership."
Go deeper: Black Effect Podcast Festival returns to Atlanta with Charlamagne Tha God
