Sowt: an Arab podcasting movement | Global Journalism Seminar with Sowt co-founder Ramsey Tesdell | Otter.ai

Sowt: an Arab podcasting movement | Global Journalism Seminar with Sowt co-founder Ramsey Tesdell

Reuters Institute1h 1min

Speaker 1

00:04

Welcome to the herbal journalism seminars. This is the briefing. Podcasts are expected to reach over 500 million listeners globally by the end of 2024. While some markets have reached saturation point, there is rising interest in non traditional markets and new languages. In the Middle East and North Africa, there's been an explosion of new content led by platforms like South Korean cultures network and ngami. South founded in 2016, is an early innovator in the market in under a decade they've launched over 30 shows and generated over 12 million listens across multiple markets, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. When we asked our journalists fellows if they would be interested in hearing translated Arabic podcast and content 90% said yes when we asked what genres would most tweak their interest 56% chose society and culture and 44% news and politics. Today we'll meet Randy testo, co founder and CEO of South media to ask what advice he would offer aspiring podcasters in emerging markets and the importance of producing Arabic language content in this format. That's the briefing. Let's begin.

Caithlin Mercer

01:21

Welcome back to the global jazz and seminars. I am very happy that we get to spend an hour discussing two of my favorite topics, podcasting and the Middle East with a real innovator in both spaces. Ramsey Tez Dell, welcome Ramsey.

Unknown Speaker

01:37

Thanks for having me.

Caithlin Mercer

01:40

So I'm gonna do a brief let me see a brief bio here of credentials. Although they're for far too long, it would take me an hour to read through everything. So I'll just mention that I'm really interested that you studied a Bachelor of Science in rhetoric and communication, what a great degree. And also a master's in communication from University of Washington and you co founded and lead self media. Tell us a little bit about the origin story. How did you start? What were the challenges?

Speaker 2

02:27

Yeah, no, thank you. I'm just first off I'm really happy to be here. Today. I'm happy to discuss my favorite topic, which is digital audio and podcasts and so yeah, I mean, really, it's the story of salt has many different characters, like all good stories, but in a lot of ways, it is a personal journey. And so, for me, I grew up in the United States. I listen to a lot of NPR and a lot of the great public radio that was out there and really spent probably too much time in the car listening to those things, but really benefited from that, and then kind of coming back to the Middle East in 2006, to kind of explore the other side of my heritage. I was really interested in in Arabic, and the early days of publishing and whatnot. And so one way for me to kind of contribute was to work in was to work in audio and so that was something that I was excited about in a format and kind of a medium and also allowed me to function in a way that I felt that I could really give more just society and more of what I thought I could offer a bit more. And so really, the the story of salt is is a personal journey in that sense where I've been able to kind of explore things that I'm interested in. And some of those obviously have been topics and issues that have become very popular, and also learn a lot about the world and about the Middle East and about Arabic.

Caithlin Mercer

04:06

How many How big was the team when you started? It

Speaker 2

04:11

was point five people maybe when we first started so you know I it was a leap of faith and in a lot of ways there's a there's a book actually the queen, Queen knew it the the previous queen. She wrote a book called a leap of faith and it really was a leap of faith. We just my my wife and I had just had a child. And the story really is that the souls existed actually in a previous life. I mean, it's kind of like an audio social network. You would send audio messages back and forth a limited time but it was pre voice note. And so people weren't really used to kind of sending voice notes back and forth to each other. And then I kind of came in and said, Listen, like podcasts are really cool. There's not much out there and Arabic. I think there's a really interesting opportunity for us to create Arabic audio content, specifically podcasts. And so, you know, we just had a baby. I was paying myself, you know, peanuts, and we did it and we started off and so I was the first quote unquote employee and then you know, a couple of people joined right away after that. Once we got you know, the first couple of projects,

Caithlin Mercer

05:26

what do you have is not an easy thing to work in when you have a new baby screaming at home. I would imagine

Speaker 2

05:34

no, thankfully there we didn't do too much recording in our in our house. So that's

Caithlin Mercer

05:38

good. Tell me you've touched on this a little bit. But what's the significance of creating content in Arabic language? Why is it important that we produce and distribute content in other languages?

Speaker 2

05:53

Yeah, I think it's really important. You know, we have this conversation a lot and because there's more than one Arabic, there's more than one. There's one more than one era there's you know, and this is what for me in a lot of ways is a is a personal exploration and reflection in some ways is that the Middle East is a beautiful kind of cloth work of difference. There's so many different languages if we just want to talk about the language. There's different people, there's different races, there's different religions, and there's really this plurality of things. And I think, for us audio is kind of an interesting way to look at that. And this is one of our major goals is to to look at the differences to look at the things that bring us together to look at our world around us. And you know, provide stories around that provide commentary push ourselves, to think about it to be a bit critical when when needed and when required and also to question and to think about the world around us. And so that's really kind of what we set out to do. And I think it was really important to do that in Arabic. One major reason is because there wasn't a lot when we started, there wasn't much Arabic content, specifically audio Arabic content, and then do I think it's really important to do that in the language that you know, a lot of people are speaking and a lot of people are living in and that you know, in Arabic specifically you have kind of the formal Arabic and then you have different colloquial, Arabic. You know, different accents. Different countries have their own accents in North Africa, they have you know, French and Berber and other language, other languages that have been incorporated into the spoken Arabic but there is kind of a formal Arabic that most people are educated in. And most news is presented in and so you know, even those decisions and know what Arabic we use, and how and when, you know, are are fraught decisions, but really for us, we kind of flip that and look at it. And this is a beautiful tapestry that we can tap into and it's something that we really, really enjoy. And so we actually produce content in different types of Arabic we use the formal, but we also use kind of colloquial accents when we think that would be best.

Caithlin Mercer

08:14

I have a friend from Morocco who went on a first date with I believe he might have been from Jordan in Dubai. And he greeted her with a colloquialism from Jordan something along the lines of made the sun always shine on you. She got very upset stood up and slapped him because in Morocco, it meant something very different. So it really does just to emphasize the dialects can be different enough to cause conflict, which dialects perform most effectively across regions apart from classic because you've said

Speaker 2

08:51

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think that's, that's it's a question that we tackle. And we debate it possibly more than more than daily several times a day. We if you look at so most of the content that we produce is in kind of a lovin time. So like but I'll just share like the area of you know, Jordan and Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, in that accent. And then we also produce some in Egyptian you know, there's a lot Egypt is traditionally a big media market. But if you look at kind of more the commercial centers, the commercial center has shifted towards the golf a lot in the last several years. And so there's different ways to look at, look at that. Our content, you know, like I said, it's mostly producing kind of Levantine accent or informal Arabic, and it does really well in the Gulf. It does well in Egypt too. And it also does well and some countries like Algeria, Morocco. and whatnot. So we know people are listening, and I think there's a bit of a generational shift where younger folks are more used to consuming content, you know, they're listening to a Moroccan rapper, and then they're going to a Saudi YouTuber, and then you know, a Palestinian or a Jordanian or an Egyptian, you know, Instagram account. And so there's a lot of that kind of switching and I know if you look at some of the more traditional, almost all the news is presented in, in formal, formal Arabic and then if you look at you know, some of the dubbing that happened, so movies and you know, Netflix shows and whatnot that are dubbed a lot of that has dubbed into formal Arabic as well. But then some, there's the Disney plus actually does have. They have formal Arabic and then they have egyptian arabic, which is kind of traditionally seen as the you know, a lot of the old plays were in egyptian arabic. A lot of the old movies are Egyptian. And so egyptian arabic was you know, if there was a language that went across the region, there was that but I think that that has shifted as you know, content and consumption habits have changed over the last, you know, since the internet, basically the early 2000s. And I think that is sped up dramatically in the last 1010 years as streaming more content has come into the region and there's more creators from the region that are creating for their audiences. It's

Caithlin Mercer

11:24

really fascinating. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've learned, in terms of lessons for marketing to new audiences, especially a new format to new audiences, and such a diverse range of people that you're trying to reach? What how? How do you go about attracting listeners?

Speaker 2

11:49

Well, I wish I wish we had someone had written a guide or a map for us to follow. But the short and easy answer is that we learned a lot of it by mistake. And we got lucky with a few things. But really, what we've we've kind of focused on is at the very beginning the first iterations of our podcast journey. We were focused on kind of producing as much content as possible our, our, what we identified as an opportunity was there isn't a lot. So that's produced Let's fill that gap as much as we can. That was always kind of that was always prefaced with quality over quantity, but the goal was really to produce you know, as many episodes as possible. And so actually, over the last kind of three years, the number of episodes we've produced has actually decreased while the number of listeners has increased substantially. So that's one thing and then as we transitioned as more producers, more people were producing content. More people were getting into podcasts. We actually focused on specific areas. And so we actually looked at kind of specific areas where we felt we can add value, where we felt that we could have an honest conversation and where we felt we could attract you know, listeners that when they would want to listen to this content. And then you know, in the last couple of years, we've added another complexity to that. And that is really to like how do we support this? How does this content sustain itself? How do we generate income with this content? So in some ways, that's been kind of the evolution. And really, I think, here to attract listeners, the way that we did it at the beginning, was to produce kind of original, very unique content content that nobody else was producing, talking about subjects that nobody else was talking about, or talking about it in a way that nobody else was talking about it. So I think these were kind of the the lessons at the beginning. If you look at also kind of the podcast ecosystem, you see Apple podcasts dominating in that in the last few years. That's kind of decreased a little bit as you know, other players are coming and focusing on that more. But Apple still probably is one of the biggest platforms that people listen, consume and distributed podcasts on. And so one of the best ways is to get Apple to you know, highlight or to put your banner for your podcast on the show. And luckily, we've had a good relationship with the people from Apple, mostly in Dubai, and they've been very generous in their support with us and many other people as well. And so that's one great way but we've also, you know, put a little tagline on all of our shows that says, you know, if you've liked this, please share it with a friend. Because one of the best ways to attract new listeners is personal recommendations, getting people to share that content. And then, you know, in a kind of a more technical way, a great way to get other people to listen to your content is to get your content in other shows. So other shows that are doing well. Either you do cross promotion, or you get invited onto their show or whatnot. So there's a few tricks. And again, we've we've learned all of that the hard way and the difficult, long, long path, but it's more scenic from what I'm told. So

Caithlin Mercer

15:22

this more scenic, the best lessons are made in those ways. Tell me a couple of follow up questions there. How frequently are you able to meet with the Apple team and put forward kind of the agenda of what's coming up and what you'd like to get promoted?

Speaker 2

15:42

Yeah, I mean, they have a formal requests system where you can upload the artwork and you can upload you know, some of the taglines and whatnot and and they're, they're quite responsive to that they've always been very supportive. You know, they make time for the most part to chat with us and see what we're up to and what they're what they're seeing kind of from their side. And so that that's been really good. Also, you know, we found that doing working with content creators, and I'll make a slight differentiation between content creators and influencers, we're mostly focused on content creators these these people, you know, see the world in the same way we're producing content we want people to, to consume our content because they see a value in it. And so content creators are aligned with that, but content creators who have big followings the really good at that, and so we've worked with a bunch of, you know, kind of content creators to produce shows that align with their audiences and with how we see people consuming content, and then and then we work together on that. So there's different ways to do that. But you know, all the platforms, you know, Spotify, as well, you know, has an office in Dubai and they have a podcast person in Dubai, that we're in touch it and some of the other platforms, you know, we do we do some, you know, some sponsorship and some, you know, they highlight our shows in different in different in different places. There's a new, there's a new, a newer organization called the menu, which means eight in Arabic. And they are a Saudi based organization, media organization, and they have some really big podcasts and video podcasts. So YouTube is a big is a big platform for them, and for many other people and also, they just launched a new app. So many radio it's called the many radio app, which is meant to compete with some of the bigger platforms for that so there's there's many ways and you know, we're mostly if you if you if you look at the podcast ecosystem from kind of a big picture, there's three kind of pillars that you probably can kind of categorize, categorize almost everything into first is content, which I would put first. The second is, is tech and the kind of the technical back end and then there's the monetization so if you look at those three, we're mostly focused on the content pillar, and we think there's a lot of value in that. We think there's a big gap in that and we think that's where we can offer the most.

Caithlin Mercer

18:28

What is the I mean back in 2018 2019, the split was like 80% of the of people were listening on Apple, and by about 2020, it was around 5050, Apple, Spotify. What's the split looking like in your region? Is it similar?

Speaker 2

18:49

Yeah, it quite similar. I think we have I think most of us in the region, at least from what I know, we're about 50 Just over 50% Apple and then Spotify is number two by by a good distance but not quite 5050. There's, there's another local player on with AMI, which is a local audio music unit very similar to Spotify that expanded into other things as well. And so there's a little bit of that but less so they don't focus too much on the spoken word. But yeah, I mean, I think it reflects quite, and then if you look at you know, if you include YouTube in that a lot of people use number one or number two. And so, YouTube and I noticed just one of the questions. I know we're not there yet, but there's a question about video as well. You know, our name is salt, which means audio or sound. And we're pretty focused on that. And we find that there are conversations that you can only have in audio or you can have better in audio. And so we're focused on kind of those areas. You know, for example, things that are more sensitive, especially now when you know, social media and people kind of screaming past each other. You can have more thoughtful conversations. We don't obviously discount video, we think video is a very powerful format and medium and there's overlap that should and can happen with that. And so, you know, there's I think there's a really exciting playground there to play in. Yeah.

Caithlin Mercer

20:19

That's a question from Muhammad today. And it's very good question. And we might come back to it later. But before we do, tell me a little bit just what goes into Greenlight in a concept that's out what makes for a good show. According to you. Yeah,

Speaker 2

20:36

we look. So as we as I said, at the beginning, we focused on credit, producing a lot of content at the beginning. And one of our the ways that we differentiated ourselves from other people was that we created narrative driven content and narrative driven content is not to interview kind of talking heads that are talking to each other. It's based on story and, you know, following a story arc. And so we call that narrative driven content. And basically what that is, is, you know, it takes a lot more time. There's a lot more interviews, a lot of research. You know, different people work on a script together, produce a very, you know, thoroughly produced edited research script, and then that is produced into an audio piece. And so that takes a bit more time. And it's it's very difficult to get that to get that right. That into an attractive audio piece. And so that's where we've focused. So for us, again, we look at we look at a couple of different areas. One is, excuse me, is anyone talking about this subject? And then you know, no, can can we do that? In a way that makes sense? Or if yes, can we do it in a way that's different enough? And can we offer you know, a different perspective, a different format, a different a different audience maybe. And then the second kind of level of analysis that we look at is audience. What audience do we currently have, what audience do we want, what geographic demographics etc, would be interested in this subject? And then the third that, you know, in the past couple of years as we focused a bit more on this is creating that sustainability does can this generate revenue in some way? Can it be sponsored? Can there be ads? There'll be branded content around it or whatnot. And so those are the three layers that we look at. Bizarrely,

Caithlin Mercer

22:41

I am wanting to hand you a cup of coffee. Can't do that through the screen. yet but take a break for a second and I'll do some talking. I wanted really, on the on the concept of of what concepts work to talk about a couple of shows that that's out producers and the one that really caught my attention and the reason I wanted to speak to you this term was stories from Palestine, specifically because it's telling in this narrative voice. These stories of what's been going on for so long there, and humanizing. It's really humanizing content. Can you tell us a little bit about that show? What the reception has been and what the challenges have been for the past four or five months of of conflict? Yeah.

Speaker 2

23:36

I mean, the stories from Palestine is, you know, a show that we launched in the last couple of months, based on, you know, the war on Gaza. And so I think, after October 7, and we've, we, you know, it's interesting because we've had this idea for a long time. It was just kind of the right moment to do that. There's if you take a look at our shows, and the shows and the content that we produce, we don't typically what we're interested in is telling the story, and that is often a person telling their own story. And so we're very, very interested in that that narrative. of people kind of talking about what's happening to them in their, in their life and in their world. And we find, you know, that kind of on the street close to the ground coverage, works really well for the stories that we're trying to tell. So stories from Palestine is very similar, you know, is in that vein, where, you know, people are telling, you know, the stories about what is happening to them, but we also wanted to, because, unfortunately, there's so much toxic discussions. You know, there's a lot of bias there's a lot of dehumanizing that is taking place now. Our focus really there was to re humanize, you know, Palestinians and the conflict in a way that that that is not picked up often in the mainstream narratives. And so, we are looking for stories you know, about people about young people about stories that are not typically you know, heard or said or allowed to be to be said, and unfortunately, there's a lot of really powerful stories. From from that area, and that and that's the goal of that of that show. And that's, that's what we tried to do. And, you know, we've been and the show has done very well. You know, unfortunately because of the the situation since October 7 But I think, you know, this is something that we've committed to continuing. And we're we're actually really excited about telling the stories, you know, one just for just a small example. You know, there's often you know, like, why isn't there a peaceful movement in Palestine? And one series that we're, you know, unfortunately, again, there's a lot of content to do is because a lot of the traditional, you know, journalists, media, people, writers, cultural lists, thinkers, and Palestinian were assassinated around Europe and around the Middle East over the last 5060 years. And so there's a whole group of people that are fantastically creative that were dedicated to a true peace, peaceful and just solution in Palestine that have been assassinated over the last 60 years. And so I think there's a lot of those interesting stories to tell and this is a part of the effort to to humanize that that story specifically,

Caithlin Mercer

26:48

what's the title of that episode? Ramsey? I want to see if we can find that link and share it. We don't

Speaker 2

26:53

it's it's it's it's it's a coming series but it'd be under the stories from Palestine and, you know, just for example, like a son kind of funny, fantastic writer wrote some really powerful essays and stories and whatnot. The Another example is Nagi and Ali who wrote he drew this character handler who you never see his face, he's always looking towards Palestine and you never see his face. You know, he as well was was, was assassinated. So there's these stories that you know, we think need to be told. And for the most part, we're telling them in Arabic right for an Arab audience, and so there's a lot of education and reeducation that needs to happen on that. But also, there's an opportunity to reach outside of that, outside of that audience as well.

Caithlin Mercer

27:47

There's a question from Amy that I want to go to, but before we do, tell us a little bit about a year buts another fascinating show talking about shame around sex and gender. Tell us a little bit about the concept and how it's been received.

Speaker 2

28:04

Yeah, so is an Arab Arabic word that means like shameful or taboo. And it's probably if anybody has an Arab parent or has grown up in the Arab world knows that parents often say that to their children's like don't do this. It's I don't do this. It's if you can't do that you can't go out you can't do this. And so we really kind of as we were building this series, we wanted to look at, you know, things that were kind of inappropriate, right. It was one of our ways to talk about the unspoken to speak about the conversations that aren't happening, that aren't happening publicly but are happening privately with everybody and we centered on this idea of of taboo. And that was mostly focused around gender and sexuality. There's a lot of stuff that is considered, you know, taboo, and those are the things that the the topics that we wanted to talk about, and we think that works really well for audio because it's a sensitive conversation. Often oftentimes the people who are telling their own story, our, our, our, you know, a shy, they don't really want to talk about it on camera. And so audio again, works really well for that. For this topic, and some of my favorite episodes that we've ever produced and some of our most popular episodes. So clearly, there's an appetite for this type of content. come from this show, and I think really, you know, it's given us a chance to be reflective as a community, it's given us a chance to be critical, it's given us a chance to be open about these things and gender and sexuality that is that is changing. And I think you know, any all of us can can agree that that is a changing. It's a constantly kind of evolving definition and and we were very interested in that. And so, again, there isn't there isn't a lot of judgment or experts or leaders or, you know, people coming out and saying this or that is right and this is wrong and, and whatnot. It's really people telling their stories, and one of my favorite episodes that I like to talk about is a story of a mother who's talking about her son, and he's a bit more effeminate. And it's really about her struggle about supporting him being who he is, and at the same time trying to protect him from being bullied and I think this is a really personal story. It's a really delicate story. And it really showcases the power of you know, audio storytelling and allowing someone to be thoughtful and and reflective on a topic and it's really hard to be like No, I disagree with you or I don't like you or I don't like what you're doing. Who wouldn't want to protect their child who wouldn't want their child to have a satisfying childhood. And so, you know, you you you very delicately play that line and provide a space to speak about kind of the unspoken areas the area the marginal areas that are very important.

Caithlin Mercer

31:14

And the intimacy of the format, having someone whisper in your ears essentially, it's just so well suited to having those difficult conversations. Amy Isabella to viruses are some places where you distribute your content stricter about what you can put forward and how do you work around those barriers? Is that something that you do content targeting or do you leave it to the platforms to do geotargeting?

Speaker 2

31:41

We do I mean, we have, you know, as most content creators, you have different tools at your disposal and some things that you can use better than others. Some cost a lot of money, some don't. We do some geo targeting, in the sense that we have ad platforms that we can target, you know, countries. What we're finding is it's less kind of geo and it's more demographic persona based and so and podcasting, the way what is very foundational for podcasting, it's built on a very open system. RSS, which is Real Simple Syndication. It's some of the limitations of that are that you don't get a lot of the targeting. And so we don't know your age or your gender. How much money you make or what class or what you know, where you can do a lot of that on, on kind of the social media, which arguably is quite intrusive, and there's not a lot of privacy there. And so I think we don't have a lot of those tools in podcasting, but the content kind of finds the right audience in a lot of ways. But we are in the last year have become much more careful and metric analytic driven about what is a successful show. How do we get it to the right people? Are we pushing the content in the right way and the right channels at the right time? You know, when do you publish an episode? You know, in the region, Friday is typically a day off, but now there's a couple of countries that Friday is a workday is Friday, a good day to publish or not, you know, maybe they have more time, maybe they don't have time. So there's different questions like that. I

Caithlin Mercer

33:22

think that answers your Zaanse question. Really, really well. I'll do one follow up there. Do you spend money as you said the best way to find new audiences on other podcasts with the audience that you want? Do you ever invest marketing spend in advertising on competitor podcast?

Speaker 2

33:44

For the most part, we've done cross promotion. So, you know, I think, one of our efforts as a soit as a player in the ecosystem is to is to not be as competitive and be much more complimentary to each other, but it's still a small industry. And so we've actually had, you know, a lot of success working with other networks to do cross promotion. So we will give them you know, 100,000 impressions, they'll give us 100,000 impressions, and whatnot. And that is um, we have done some paid campaigns around that as well. And oftentimes, we build in you know, with content creators and stuff like that, that, you know, there'll be some extra promotional stuff on their channels as well. And then we do you know, some media buys across various other channels and whatnot. But to be completely honest, our I was looking at this as, as a negative and then I was talking to someone recently and they said, No, your content has incredible organic reach. This is something that almost everybody is desperate for. So the paid layers and the inorganic layers on top of that, actually, you're in a really great place because you already have a really good organic base, which is everybody is trying to get and so we're just getting into that complexity and being a lot more data driven about about the marketing.

Caithlin Mercer

35:12

Brilliant. There are loads of fantastic product people in the question section today. I'm gonna go downstairs in a second to friend at Fran and then to no way but before I do, Laura Doyle says, Before you decide to continue with the product, what are the KPIs you're looking for? When is an audience big enough for you to continue?

Speaker 2

35:34

Yeah, I mean, we have like I said, we look at that kind of three different you know, is the content valuable? Can we in a way, is it does it already exist? Can we do it in a different way? That's better audiences is a part of that is you know, I wouldn't quite say it's 1/3 1/3 1/3 we are content creators. We love our craft. And we we tried to be very careful in protecting our craft. We're very interested in the story. We're much more interested in in you know, telling the story really well. Then doing something really flashy and just getting a bunch of, you know, people flipping through it on Instagram, so audiences are part of that and it's a very important piece of that. It depends a lot on each show, you know, we have shows that regularly do you know over 50,000 and episode over 100,000 and episode, we have other shows that just do a couple of 1000. But we think they're important, and so we keep doing them. And most of it's in the middle somewhere, right? There's maybe five or six shows that do really well. There's a couple of shows that are in the middle and then there's a bunch that you know, don't do as well, but I think what's interesting is is figuring out how we can be niche and talk to certain people about certain things, but at the same time on a network kind of level, monetize or work to create some sort of sustainability that allows these kind of niche, more niche shows to continue. Again, our goal is to create this content in Arabic for a new audience. So yeah, it's kind of the voice of a younger generation, and that that really fits into how we see the world and how we want to see the world and also like I said, going back to, you know, some of the, the interesting diversity in the region, you know, whether it's linguistic or religious or racial or or otherwise not all of that is financially viable. Right bit of it is not and so but it's important. So we have to make those decisions. We can't do everything we have to you know, and you can't quite see it's a blurry blob here but I have categories that I hope we can get to you know, we have a goal of growing those out over the next couple of years, but that we have to be we have to be strategic, it's better. We focused on being the best at a smaller number of things then, you know, just okay at a lot of things.

Caithlin Mercer

38:19

I really love that what I'm hearing from you is collaboration, and how do we make this work so that we can carry this one? It's so not Western and so refreshing to hear that approach from someone. Friend, friend Francisco from Chile has a question for you. While we get her queued up on video and sound. Can I ask a very sexy question from Moodle Moser says Do you think that the Arab traditional media networks dropped the ball on on on podcasting so the MBCs and so on?

Speaker 2

39:00

I have to I have to admit that I know I know of some of the people that are that are providing some of these questions, or they're your people agreeing with them beforehand, right. specific questions. No, I mean, it's it's yes and no, right. I think there's some networks that have done well, there's some networks that have looked at it carefully and done and done good things. There's somebody that pioneers that and then backtrack. And so I think what, what one of the reasons that attracted me to this space, was it wasn't dominated by big networks and there was space for independent media to kind of blossom and reach a lot of people. And I just want to be very careful with my language audience. While there are shows that you know, don't reach a lot of audience audiences still obviously very important if we're not speaking to people or the right people or the right number of people, then we're also failing and so we need to make sure that that is an important part of the definition of success. I think where we prioritize that differently is it's not just about numbers are not just about money. There are other factors that play into that very, that calculation.

Caithlin Mercer

40:11

Yeah. Which is a perfect segue, go for it, Francisco.

Francisca Skoknic

40:16

Hey, Ramsey on the deletions for your project. I wanted to ask you to talk a bit more about your sustainability strategy. What kinds of monetization had to try what works what's not? And maybe what you've learned about the US experience where you we saw some kind of battle that bus and how do you see it working in the future?

Speaker 2

40:45

Yeah, thank you for that question. I mean, so we, I've worked for us for so we look at sustainability, we look at having as many diversified revenue sources as possible, because if we're reliant on any one you know, it comes with with a lot more risk in that way. So we come up, we have kind of a mix of revenue sources. We we have grants, and so we work with international and regional and local organizations that provide us because of the content of the work that we do. And then we also work with a number of clients and partners that, you know, pay us to produce content for them essentially. And we work together sometimes it's it's more corporate and commercial, and sometimes it's much more of a partnership. And so there's there's variations of that so that the first is grants. The second is is kind of service contracts or client partnerships. And then the third and fourth are kind of the four categories that we look at our subscription as three and advertising as number four. And so having kind of a mix of those has really helped us, like I said, do some of the content that maybe is not commercially viable, but is really important, and do other content that is more commercially successful. And that allows us to sustain our work in other ways. So this is kind of how I look at it. Advertising is very small, still, subscription is still quite small as well. We're hoping that those will grow significantly in the next in the next couple of years. We've we've been able to secure long relationships with you know, clients and partners to produce content for them and under an kind of a white label branded structure where we produce it for them but it comes out in their name. And then we also have you know, grants that allow us to that support our work in various ways. So, I mean, as you may know, journalism, you know, I would say generally is facing a transformation. Podcast. I think you're rightly to call it and there was a bubble there for a couple of years. There's some crazy amounts of money that were getting thrown around. And that kind of changed. I think, last year, our numbers doubled from the year before. We're aiming to double again this year, so I don't see a downturn in that sense. I just see a shift in priorities and a shift in you know, how you can sustain your projects. I think anyone who relies too heavily on any one revenue source, you know, whether it's advertising or you know, working with, with clients and partners, or even subscription you know, you even see, you know, like Netflix and, you know, Spotify have freemium models now, where it was subscription only now there's cheaper ones, but there's ads. And so I think they, you know, are probably more driven by profit where how can we get more money into the but also they're diversifying their revenue sources. So I think we can learn from that and see, see what we can do. I would say, though, there is a public benefit, right to journalism and to the work that you know, you do and many of us do, and I think there should be a public mechanism to support that as well. Whether that is on a local government, regional or international level, but there needs to be much more support for that.

Caithlin Mercer

44:37

And just to follow up on on that quickly, we spoke a little bit before about a strategy, that diversification strategy that includes things like events and newsletters and all sorts of different if you want to talk a little bit about those kind of less audio aspects of the diversification. For example, YouTube strategy, or an event strategy.

Speaker 2

45:05

Yeah, I mean, I think you can look at some of the, you know, the the popular podcasts around the world and, you know, events, I think is is an interesting way. I think it's a great way to get the audience involved to get people also want a sense of community and sense of belonging, and I think those are really important aspects and a successful kind of long term relationship with your audience. We've done some of that the region the way the region is kind of organized makes it difficult for us to kind of be close to our to the bigger pieces of our audience, but we're, you know, we're working on ways to do that as well. I mean, YouTube is a really important platform. What's really interesting is it's a whole economy, right? The reason there's so much video content, is because there's a lot of money in video content, right. And I think this is where we're also interested in creating a bit more of an economy in the audio market, so that people can produce really good content, living doing that and they can do it, you know, in a way that's satisfying to both them as a creator and the audience. You know, and I think digital generally has flipped some of those equations and flipped some of those questions for us as producers and the audience, as journalists, the audience is consumers and assets as producers and journalists, to you know, we have to rethink that relationship. And we have to move that relationship and rethink how but I think, you know, YouTube is a fantastic platform. The YouTube media guys are really cool. They do some really great stuff. And they're adapting their technology to get an RSS feeds the one thing that I will say is that a lot of our content that we produce is narrative driven, doesn't transform or allow for a video element very easily. So this is something that we're grappling with and playing in different ways. Do we produce a whole new episode that's a video version? Do we work with a partner to do that? You know, do we commission that out as a TV series? There's different ways to think about that. Yeah.

Caithlin Mercer

47:14

I'm rethinking that's got to know a from Argentina

Speaker 3

47:20

Hi, ramsI nationally to thank you for sharing this time with us. I've got two questions. One of them is related to what you have already talked about. related to sustainability and advertising. I was wondering what what is the relationship with salt with private advertisers? If at any point, did you get the feeling of that they were trying to make, to influence what content to publish, what content not to publish or or to favorite a certain perspective or about some topic. And the other question is, how do you think that a generative AI in AI Artificial Intelligence in tendency is impacting on podcast? Or for example, in the transcripts podcast that can lead to wider public? Those are my questions. Thank you.

Caithlin Mercer

48:22

Thanks. No, I just because we're running out of time. Ramsey I think let's focus on that. Ai generative AI tools around transcription and translation. How are they featuring in your in your plans going forward?

Speaker 2

48:38

Yeah, I mean, I think everybody's talking about AI and in very different ways, and the possibilities are incredible. I mean, I think it is a really transformational technology that will you know, that will change the way that we you know, I remember last November last October, when it really kind of came out like almost over a year ago, we you know, I had a moment where I was like, What is my value as a creator like we write stuff we put ideas together if this machine can do it for us, what, you know what value what's my purpose? So there was that little bit of that moment, but I think the way at least I know it's changing quickly, but at least today, I think it's a great tool, and I think people should be using it if it makes you more efficient and makes you quicker makes you better. I think you should be using it. The way that we've used it in the team is we've definitely encouraged people to use it to make their work easier. We've asked it, we've we've made sure that people generate the ideas mostly themselves and not rely on, you know, chat, GPT or Bard or any of those other tools to generate ideas. But if we can make things more efficient and do that, there's also interesting, you know, you ask it to write a headline 15 different ways you know, that's something that you know, and then an editor picks, you know, one or two or three of those. Those are some interesting applications. I think we'll get to the point where there will be more and more generation artificial generation of content and I'm not sure that that will necessarily lead to a better content. And I also don't know, I mean, obviously, I think a lot of people are thinking about this, but I don't know how public journalism public good public interest media is sustained by that. So there's a lot of really important questions that we have to ask ourselves. I don't obviously have the answers for that, but on a very, you know, specific level we are using it you know, to generate, you know, text and a lot of content to edit to translate. You can put it into different accents. It can do a lot of interesting things.

Caithlin Mercer

51:08

As far as speed round and that in the in the q&a. Zainab says Do you think there's potential for an Arabic as a daily at some point?

Speaker 2

51:19

I think I mean, there are two in that sense. None of them have. Well, I don't know how popular they haven't gone viral like the daily did in the US a couple of years ago. There is a menu has a has one called and measured and measured is like the sunrise not. It's like, really hard. There's a word for that moment in the early part of the day. It's one of the prayer times. It's like, what do you say? Dawn? Dawn, I believe? Yeah, exactly. And then so that's a daily news show. That's kind of quick and they kind of hit a few things quickly. And then AlJazeera create has one that's that's a daily news show as well. And we actually did a weekly show during COVID. And it was called Mr. Jad which is the same, almost the same word for Corona, which was new. And that we realized quite quickly that there was a lot it was a lot of work to do that and we weren't big enough of an institution to do that. Yeah, even a weekly show is just it was too slow. And it was it was hard to manage that and we've we've paused that since then. But there's yeah, there's I mean, I still we're definitely nowhere close to saturation. There's a lot of there's a lot of ideas and a lot of good shows left to be built. So yeah.

Caithlin Mercer

52:38

How important is sound design to narrative content asks yeah Zhan.

Speaker 2

52:44

Yeah, that's great sound design is fantastic. We're probably more careful than we shouldn't be with that. We spend a bit more time than then then, then we probably should. But we think it's really important and that's all we have. Right? So we think it's really important to make it right and make it good. You know if people want advice, like make sure your sound is good. And I think you know sound design, the music everything is is crucial.

Caithlin Mercer

53:12

Yeah. How much percentage of budget gets spent on like Foley and sound effects and background and buying in library stuff.

Speaker 2

53:22

We don't have a percentage, but it's not a small amount. You know, the sound that we have a couple of sound designers and engineers like around the world around the Middle East, you know, Bay roots here. We have one guy in Morocco. And you know, they always send pictures of like weird things that they're doing trying to get sound effects and whatnot. But we also subscribe to several sound libraries,

Caithlin Mercer

53:47

at least has a question that breaks my heart. How long do you have to wait? On a journalistic project? How long do you wait and keep trying before you kind of decide okay, this isn't working?

Speaker 2

54:00

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, we had How long have you wait, I mean, there's each person has their own answer, I think in that one, but for us, like you know, we tried to look at at shows in different ways. You know, we have an investigative show. And the way that we got that supported financially was about you know, governance and accountability and transparency. And we wanted to do that in a way that would be popular for audience. So how do you talk about transparency in a way that's cool that people will listen to it? Well, you can do that in like a crime, you know, true crime series, even talk about cases around the Arab world that are really important. And that is a part of, you know, accountability and transparency, transparency and governance. And so, there's different ways to think about that. And you know, people are always like, Oh, why limit yourself just to audio? You know, there's that old trick and creative writing it's like you write you know, you come up with a concept and you write all these descriptors and you just you really get everyone to say all these things about this, you know, the olive tree or the, you know, something, an oak tree or something. And then you say, Okay, now describe that without everything that you just said. And so there's these these limitations and these ways to, to get yourself to think differently and more creatively and, and get out of the traditional frameworks. I would also just be a little bit aware of not trying to do something just because it's crazy and ordain dangerous or say something about a power or government or a person. Get in a lot of trouble about that. Be smart about it. So

Caithlin Mercer

55:37

let's go downstairs to Osama from Iraq.

Speaker 4

55:43

Thank you, Ron Z for your time. So I got to close. Why you said like Silvio bass,

Caithlin Mercer

55:52

Osama your sound is breaking up quite badly. Can I suggest that you move to the front of the room closer to the computer because the Bluetooth is not connecting well. While we wait for someone else, while we were while we wait for a summit to reposition himself, let's you Oh, you're good. You're good. Let's do it. Let's go for it. Go for it. Osama.

Speaker 4

56:20

Thank you. So thank you for your time. Ramsey and the insight. So I'm curious why you say like video based narrative content is still not working for you. Is it like something cultural? Because perhaps some of the topics you said were kinda like you said, like, you know, somewhere, perhaps sensitive or taboo so people perhaps are not happy. To talk it in visual version. And the question the other question I have is like, what strategy to use for the longer format versus like shorter, like you know, format because, like one podcast I know of is like it is doing very well when they cut it into pieces and like, it could go like as far as like 1 million views where versus the longer version? That's like, you know, 50

Caithlin Mercer

57:07

Thanks so much. So is is video Yep. And does short form, audio content work?

Speaker 2

57:16

Yeah. I mean, with our audio content, we looked at it more as what would work for audio and not what doesn't work for video. And that if you look at the stuff that's really popular in video, it's usually two Talking Heads. It's two people talking to each other. You know, whether it's Joe Rogan or you know, whatever any of the funniest stuff. Probably one of the most popular ABS Tom's, you know, things like that. And then the second question was, like, I mean, I think there's value in both and we do stuff that's shorter. We do stuff that longer. You know, there's a podcast that I follow Lex, Lex Lieberman, Lex, Lex Lexington, something like that, you know, the last lap was what was six hours long. I couldn't believe it. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw how long that thing was. And I was like, even on times three speed it's going to take me you know, three hours or two hours to listen to. And so I was like, Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme. So, but if you look at the longer stuff in the Gulf, it works and it does reach millions of views. I think it depends on the audience and depends on the topic and depends on what you're trying to say about it. And

Caithlin Mercer

58:29

then a final question from Omar from Burkina Faso, I'll ask on his behalf about the perception and the reception from different audiences in different countries. how receptive have different countries been to such kind of progressive agenda pushing or not agenda pushing, but agenda, redefining content? Has there been pushback?

Speaker 2

58:54

I think for the most part, you know, people have been very receptive because the way we do it is very, is very, it's much more thoughtful, textual than, you know, just other ways. That's one and two, I think, you know, the stuff that we're talking about, it's not, you know, it's not from somewhere else, it's from here, these things that are here. These are issues that have been discussed since, you know, 200-300-2000 years, or, and so it's not, you know, we're really we're really trying to put a lens at what is going on in our community and less, you know, trying to introduce new ideas or whatnot. And for the most part, it's, it's, you know, received quite well. But of course, there's always people that that don't don't like it, and they make their voices well known on social media.

Caithlin Mercer

59:45

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so, so, so much Ramsey for all of your time. Very, very quickly. One last question I have to ask you. What podcasts do you recommend to a roomful of journalists? What are you listening to at the moment? Yeah,

Speaker 2

01:00:03

I mean, there's some really good, there's this one call that I actually stopped producing. But yeah, I could go back and listen to everyone. Again, the Anthropocene reviewed. Yeah, what about that said, I mean, it's just phenomenal, phenomenal content. You know, I think there's some UK based ones too, like Gaul hanger. His what's it called? Polit. There's the the history of everything politics of everything, I think is what it's called. They they're doing some fantastic stuff. I think the New York Times audio is genuinely really, really good as well. Cereal is great. And some of the stuff there's a I think it's called stolen some of the stuff that Spotify and gimlet produce that

Caithlin Mercer

01:00:47

stuff. Yeah. Stuff. Amazing. Thank you. Ramsey, and yes to the person in the comments. This will be available online for playback. You'll find it on AIX, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube and Ramsey. We wish you every success going forward. I look forward to hearing lots of AI translated Arabic content and my future.

Unknown Speaker

01:01:09

Thank you so much. Go Well, yeah, they

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