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Behind the scenes of the world's number one Spanish podcast | Otter.ai

Behind the scenes of the world's number one Spanish podcast

Reuters Institute1h

Caithlin Mercer

00:10

Hello and welcome. We're halfway through this turns global journalism seminar series and this week we're turning to podcasting. Between 2020 and 2021. The number of podcasts on Spotify doubled to 4.4 million shows revenue recorded by IAB between 2018 and last year increased by 192%. To 1.4. us at 1.1 Point 4 billion US dollars. By 2024. That figure is projected to reach over 4 billion, but it's an industry with a big language representation gap. As with much of podcasting exact figures are hard to find but somewhere between 30 and 50% of all podcasts are recorded in English and language spoken by only 17% of the world. Our guest today is Catalina Guerrero saw that gap in 2011. And in 2012, she launched a Spanish language podcast 10 years on her company has grown from two employees to 30. They've produced almost 300 episodes attracting over 40 million downloads across two shows Radio Ambulante and alila. And they've won a Gabriel Garcia Marquez prize in innovation among other awards. Karolina is joining us from New York today and I'm excited that you all get to experience how passionately and openly she speaks about not just this medium, but the challenges of starting a media company. So welcome Karolina. Yeah. Hi,

Speaker 1

01:45

thank you. Thank you so much for you. I'm glad to be here again. Great to have you excited to be with you all.

Caithlin Mercer

01:53

Yeah, that's a that's a big morning in the US for you. With the midterm election results rolling in. I won't ask you to turn into a political commentator. But we did think that we would start with this clip from a recent episode of alila to give people a taste of the work that you are doing on your show. And let's have a listen.

Speaker 2

02:21

She had to pull your credit card to Julia movie and mommy I'm your man. Mr. Lincoln as a storage in Mackay goes with as a cover.

Caithlin Mercer

02:31

That's the wrong thing. Let's try that. Let's try that one more time.

Speaker 3

02:52

Don't say we don't really want to kill Moonga and acylic soon as they may have carabiner trabaho para kinky status Tuscumbia is by mucho mas que nanosphere Boise daddio en Espanol.

Speaker 4

03:03

News Media along with the Democratic Party has convinced millions and millions and millions of us that Republicans only want to see white men in power that we are a bunch of racists, epilepsy WOTO and environmental Rio Grande and they have done the tantos Bhutan this kimonos Candida to some monumental Latinos compete my masculine Anca que esta Grupo nowhere sa N in guna studio tipo de los partidos Antonio Garcia mas companion para los latinos

Speaker 5

03:33

in Latino has given me an appreciation for the American ideal pluribus unum out of many backgrounds and experiences we are one people

Caithlin Mercer

03:47

well, interesting, tell us how was with an audience so focused around Latin America. how interested are they in US politics?

Speaker 1

04:00

Oh, very much. Le law was it's a podcast that we recently launched. It was launched like two and a half years ago. Still, we already published like, like, over like 130 I think is 136 episodes is a weekly podcast a bit new see that goes? adds context and go in depth on on the weekly story of the you know, like the story most important in the way usually we talk about LatinAmerica but we also cover the United States because there are many Latinos here this relationship between the Latinos in the US and the Latino Americans is is very, very tight. There are many I'm sorry, my dog is making noises I

Caithlin Mercer

04:49

love we love having

Speaker 1

04:50

so so this relationship is very important, I think in both ways. And also like politics in the United States are complicated as well. And, and I think ELO does quite a great job at explaining every week, things that that are not necessarily like because we do it like on a full episode. Those things have not necessarily found in media in Latin America. We take the time to explain we go and find local voices local reporters. Talk to them and try to find a bigger picture and understand the layers of of these. And I think in the United States, I am one of those Latinas, who who vote here but also it's what we did on this episode. was to expand and try to explain what role did the Latino vote play and why this was important. We always try to to to use the space of El Hilo to to bring something that you can't find somewhere else. We tried. We know that most media organizations covered the news on one angle we tried to go on a different one. And and when we launch Radio Ambulante 10 years ago, the podcast that helped us create this production company, production house. We knew that political borders are real, but like linguistic and cultural borders are are very fluid. And we consider the United States a Latin American country just because there are almost like 60 million Latinos here so so it's something that we can divide and then the there isn't in the United States is always like growing. It's only growing.

Caithlin Mercer

06:40

It's brilliant. I've heard Radio Ambulante the first show that you produced I've heard it referred to as this Latin American life. Is that does it bother you when people make that comparison?

Speaker 1

06:55

Oh, no, no, that'll actually when we launched the ambulance, we came with AD in 2011 and then launch a year later after working and but we were based in California at the time, and had this idea we're like building the project, finding our brand name will like create a website logo, all that trying to learn how to produce all of your journalism. And when people ask us in the United States, what do you want to do? We are like, Oh, this is like This American Life in Spanish and regional. It was like the elevator pitch and it helped us to explain what we wanted to do because it came from listening to these incredible radio shows that we admired and and Danielle, who I co founded the project with and Alarcon, who's also my husband now, we weren't always listening to a show and then complain your whole that is why we can find something like that this long form audio personal journalism. Well investigated, you know, rigorous, you know, less sophisticated. On the narration on the storytelling. Why can't we find this in Spanish and from Latin America? So one day we decided to create it, and that was easy for us. It was it got complicated when we were trying to explain the break to people to to our colleagues and friends in Latin America who wanted to be part of the project and pitch stories. So that became more like, oh, we need to explain what this is about because it's not a format that was that existed in Spanish. I happy I'm happy to report that 10 years later, we have heard people referring to to This American Life is like Latina like like Jambul antibody in English. And we have received some like we have seen tweets about that or people from Latinoamerica recommending ramble and they using that so I hope that they don't bother.

Caithlin Mercer

08:47

That's brilliant. I wanted to ask about the pandemic and how that's affected your both of your shows. Did it impact your numbers? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1

08:59

Yeah, I think it seems that it was like in the whole. I mean, mostly in podcasts like ours that was weekly were weekly podcast, the pandemic hit before we launch the Lilo at the time, we were only publishing ambulante Rambla. DISA was polishing 24 episodes every year on seasons of like six months, seasons and is more long form narrative. We're gonna talk about that a bit later, but I think it depends. It depends on a lot about, I mean, on the routines that people have, you know, like you go to your commute, you just listen to a podcast every Tuesday. All this kind of stuff, and I think we all lost our routines, and we were like, busy at home, at least in our case. We also like I also like got disconnected from any of my podcasts at the time. I became like, like really obsessed with news podcasts. So those podcasts were doing great during the pandemic, and they weren't so necessary. Yeah, so that was one of the things that were challenging, but we are like, bearable and they also we have make methanol I mean we we look at the numbers carefully. And every every week, really like all the time we analyze data all the time. But also we invest a lot we have invested a lot of on creating and building a strong community around our podcast. So one thing that we saw was decreasing our metrics, but we made efforts on the other on other spaces to grow on and strengthen our community and that worked very well. And I think people think about that and we because we are part of that community. We also we also did it you know, like we also were grateful that we had this community and for example, we launched these Zoom parties, dancing parties with DJ on Zoom. That were they were so beautiful really sounds like now that everything is open sounds a bit ridiculous, but we were like dancing on Zoom like this with these DJs people dancing with their cats, the grandparents, their cactus. So we did a lot of like, the counterpart was like making sure that we we prove that we had the community and I think in podcast, this is most one of the most valuable things and and the numbers have recovered a bit since then. I think we're closing close to get back to the same numbers now.

Caithlin Mercer

11:40

That's really good news. You mentioned there. The role of long form narrative and the narrative arc and podcasting. So I want to play another sample, this time from Radio Ambulante but I should probably set it up a little bit. This is from the episode The Lost Children. And in the first half of the episode, we've met Martha Lucia, who lost her son Sergio in the horrific historic mudslide in Colombia. And David, your husband has walked us through the horrifying story of of loss and and then we get to this point. So let's listen together. Alicia

Speaker 2

12:35

juja Mommy, mommy, I'm your man. Mr. Lincoln is a storage in Mackay goes with as a cover. Movie. My name is empty. Cynthia Cooper

Speaker 6

12:44

Ducati Hutchinson. Storm will be able to settle land so we get to Olivia. This is Tao Travis this all goes on she means don't always turn anatomy enter your Luca cundari cumin Amiga Komunikasi evolution kala it will be a New Orleans is Mrs. Disposal our lecture intro dioramas embedded equal donors but there is no job readiness pan you'll see lesser Colibri

Speaker 2

13:12

20 Latina here he says he's a Colombian is the whole chemistry on Mira Canosa him Latino por que emergico Weber que me Samir Morocco tal Nino La La harissa me solino Asia Andrew sokola eternal and with referred to La SE is essentially with the Amiga

Speaker 6

13:35

simulation pillar database Alex because he wrestled with the principles of ICU in general Kisa Dalga was

Caithlin Mercer

13:45

when I was listening to that episode trying to find the right clip. I knew that this was the clip because all of the hairs on my body were standing on end. And I think that's what a lot of your podcasts do. I probably should ask a little bit about this episode. Do you want to give us any any insights and background and I asked you earlier did they ever find Sergio and do you wanna? Let us know what we know?

Speaker 1

14:17

Yeah. This episode, I'm Colombian and I was I was a child when this tragedy happened. That was a dark November there was another incident in Colombia that Mark distort the history of Colombia and this is one of them. I think like when I heard actually did that is dubby Trujillo, the Colombian, the producer and there it is much younger than me. He he I think he's 20 years younger than me or something. Sorry. It's okay. But But what is interesting is that he was he brought the story to us he pitched the story. And, and I was very, I mean, I was very interested in the story because because I was a witness, you know, like I live during those days and even between, if we had like this gap of between between us, he was not you know, like he researched the story. And yeah, so it was it was a great story for us for the year. It was at the time chameleon CBN and then I think, oh, just learning as an adult that that happened to kids my age or something like that was very, like confusing and really heartbroken and knowing that this happening on trial is when when a government is not well prepared, I think what we need when we tell a story like this is a powerful voice and a powerful story. No, I mean, the character Marta, Lucia has this powerful, very, very sad story, but she also carries this story very well. Because she she speaks very well. I think when you're like producing audio, you need that power, and you need to feel the emotions. Once we present that these are words of distortion of worship and debate made us people to read the text of the transcript with no audio. And then it was like when you return the praise, right? But then he played the clip. And it's so different when you have the text in front of you than when you listen to the story on the on the wards. And they're and they and the feelings that are like like that you can you can feel and and this is one of those stories of her like all it has like a he's a great writing the editors like do a lot of work. They were too good. We do a lot of editorial work. The fact checking it would look like it took like a year to produce if I'm not wrong and and I think it has a great research, a great storytelling, not that happy ending but some of the characters of the of the story. Someone was like somebody who runs a foundation and since then they have reunited like some of the families, not many, not as many as they should but I think when you just remember when you just use history, but you just tell the story in the present. This you are just transported to this universe on a very well told story. And and then you realize that this keeps happening. This keeps happening even like in Florida or like a Montego you know, like I mean not not maybe like the disappearance of the of the children that that keeps happening around the world with so many people displays but it's just like, like governments are not well prepared. These are emergencies. That people should have like prevented people die families get separated as a result and and this is the reason why we tell these stories just because if you really get like interested in the story and you can't leave the story because he's well told. You just maybe like at the end. At the end, what I feel is that the storytelling gets to the head of every person who listen to a story is very personal. And at the end people who for us are people who who should listen to these stories. And maybe they can think differently later, huh? Sorry, it's very personal. So I was pleased to be answered. But

Caithlin Mercer

18:25

no, that's absolutely fine. And I it is it's an extremely emotional story. You were telling me earlier that Sergio wasn't reunited with his mother as far as we know. Yes, yes. Yeah. He hasn't. I mean, a purpose has away from the emotional and into the more dry rational stuff. Because when I've heard you speak in the past, I've been really blown away by your straight talk on on what it's like to start a media company. And anyone who's who's been on a media startup course or any startup course has been told diversify, diversify, diversify your revenue sources, and you've really, really done that in a remarkable way. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about Radio Ambulante is business model and revenue plans?

Speaker 1

19:32

Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay, first of all, I get excited to talk about this. Just because it's so hard, so hard to spend years on this company and trying to find something that works. I think the first ingredient I mean, again, I think we are successful and and the reason why I feel we are successful is because we we still look into the future with optimism. But so so this is like a I mean, the spoiler This is the spoiler but but it's really like I think what it has taken is to find our own business model and, and our own path to make sure that we do we are at this point, nothing is guaranteed, but with Radio Ambulante we wanted to produce this and it was like, Oh, we want to do these compelling, like public media content. So we are a nonprofit let's let's create a nonprofit. We really wanted to make it happen. And we thought that the right to do it was creating a nonprofit organization. So we did and, and but it was like, then you are in the United States then you have to did you tell people Oh, we covered this. This is a content that we feel that is missing. We are part of the Latinos here we feel that there is a connection between the two regions and and we're gonna produce this in Spanish because this personal journalism is not doesn't have the same impact. If you produce then your voice over the stories they have to be told in the in the voice of the characters who lived and experienced these stories. And people were excited. Oh, this is great. It sounds great. Why don't you do it in English? This was a question No, no, no, but it was precisely what we're trying to do is to reach out to people like us who find this this this discontent anywhere and also LatinAmerica this format as a system. So like so so it was hard to monetize it at the beginning. It was hard to find grants, it was hard to find sponsors, it was hard to find many things. It had required a lot of resilience. A lot of free work at the beginning, but there was salt always something that was there and I think who people for people who who joined our team. We had some co founders who joined us me and Danielle at the beginning before launching then there were like, like, like people who joined the team. Even even though we had limited resources, there was this ambition of like creating that that we all were convinced that was needed and that they had like a big potential. But this kind of long audio journalism requires a lot of like everything and and time and time means money. So during the years it was hard to produce. So what we have done is like fine I'm sorry, like this is long, but what we have done is like solve a riddle that took that has taken years to get there. But like, at some point, we realized that we couldn't just depend on grants. It couldn't just depend on the investment that we were making. And also we had kids, all of us have kids at work in at rumble and we couldn't we couldn't sacrifice much more of like free work and stuff like that. So we started creating this partnership. So So we had these these these grants that were supporting the whole company. They weren't 100% of the company and the company was more we were five people working full time but really with salaries very significant if that it was not even getting paid for years. And a few of us were like just learning nothing. And then we close this partnership with NPR. They looked at us they wanted to bring Grambling to the family of podcasts. They wanted to add Rembrandt as the first Spanish language podcast and we did we and we have an actual collaboration seven years already in these contracts that we are very proud of. We are so we found this mission aligned this organization that we were aligned on patients and our views of the future. And and and basically we have an exclusive distribution deal with them. It says it's kind of like a sponsors sponsorship, split, revenue split, but they help us to be sustainable. They don't sustain the MPR doesn't sustained. They weren't 100% of the company but at the time, it it added 50% of the of the annual budget and Allah was we were five people at the time. So that allowed us to grow a bit. So they gave us they brought all that they had all the metrics, the knowledge, the support, you know, like the rich and the and we learned a lot on the market marketing. So so with that partnership, we stabilized in 2016 our finances and since then, we launched really low with independently but we partnered again with the two years ago with a year ago with a Vice News on a similar, more like a couple of duction deals. So we have like that, adding also like helping us to support the whole company. We three years ago we launched a membership program, because we have a very tight community and we didn't know if we wanted to come and ask for support but it also means that we were not able to grow out of like this. I mean to really grow and the community has been amazing. The

Caithlin Mercer

25:00

waves the community that was dancing at parties during COVID Yeah,

Speaker 1

25:05

I mean, some of them. Then they I mean, like people, I think what we do is that we feel that this is a community that we all want to preserve and people help and do their part. Whoever can support financially they know that if they support this content will be free for many other people who can't most of them who can support we do our we try to our promises we do our the best journalists, that we can the next episode will be better than the last one that we're story. We're gonna just try to find those voices. You know, we do our part and I think everybody does so. So these members who support us some people support us like every, every month so people have support that have supported us in the past. But that membership program is growing and has is helping a lot and it's bringing like 20% of the annual budget at the moment. So now so so now we have like the grants. That is like one quarter of the budget. We have the partnerships with this me organization that is another quarter of the budget. We have a membership program that is under a quarter of the budget. And we have also at some point we always surveyed our audiences they won and and we're learning about these. I mean who listen to us how to create like very, I don't know, like varied content, listen to them, right like to the audience and then but there was something that was present on the survey that was very odd. And it was like we have many Spanish learners into our listeners. And that number was growing steady with our metrics, you know, with our with our survey, so at some point we were like yeah, I mean, we know who listen to us, but who are they? And then we did more research. And then at some point we partnered with a technology company and launched Lupa, which is an app that transforms Radio Ambulante's content into very smart lessons for Spanish learners. Who can like select vocabulary like slow like speed, you know, it's it's very sophisticated. And that's bringing is not free, but it's bringing like 10% of the annual budget of the company. So that's helping a lot and and then yeah, I mean, then we do live shows sometimes and we do we sell merchandising that doesn't represent much, but is fun, you know. So what I'm trying to do now with this business model that works and has worked for us for for a few years, is that making sure that we want to expand we still want to grow a bit more we are now 30 People, which is kind of crazy. And because from five in 2016 to 30 now it's over 30 Now it's it's really like a bigger company. So we don't want to I think grow mush on like, on like we don't want to make these companies super huge because we want to do it continue doing it right. But if we want to stay in business, we want to bring more content in Spanish for listeners who really value Mallery you know, they really value what we do and and then for that we're trying to expand the development area and try to bring more grants, maybe create more partnerships with other media or sponsors to launch series or stuff like that. And yeah, we keep looking at a numbers matrix. Listen to the audience and then think about what we can do.

Caithlin Mercer

28:31

Test it out, test it out. If anyone has questions for Catalina, you can put them in the q&a box. You'll find the function at the bottom of your screen or fellows downstairs you can use the WhatsApp tool and I will come to audience questions in a second. But before I do, you talked a little bit about the team and I know it's it's incredibly difficult to keep employees and keep them engaged when it's when it's a small company. How have you What have you learned about managing people over over the course of of the last decade? No,

Speaker 1

29:13

I mean, I think that probably what I have learned. What is important is remembering that there are human beings that you work with and we are all different and have needs and we all grow get tired, get excited. So so what i i think the culture since the beginning has been very like we have we are very straightforward we are Direct like transparent, have a safe place for people to say how they feel, what they want. I ask people when they come to Radio Ambulante how like your period at Radio Ambulante will help you to reach your mission if you have one. You know, but I think I want people to I want persons who are going to Radio Ambulante to to bring their own challenges and to make sure that they this is a time well invested while we're while you're here. We I mean it's still we finally are like paying market rate salaries, but it has been like an effort you know, we are and it's growing. I mean we're growing we have like equal maternity leave or paternity leave and and certain things that maybe Latino America is not as common in the United States for sure that not we listen to them and we listen to at one point some of my later some producers told me that they we were given like 15 like days of vacation and they came to us and say oh we want to relocate. You know is that is just like listening to them and to because we are here all on the same boat and what I feel is that it's still a study people it's 10 years for like more than 10 years. We all feel fatigued. We I mean we are managing the company. I'm not the greatest storytelling and I don't do the craft of the audio. But I have editors who have like been with us since the beginning. Then Yale, Camilla Segura, Sylvania, who's now the host and AP of a Lilo. And we are now facing that you know, like I mean, I think it's 10 years together. What we try to do is and retention is certainly a big challenge. Mostly not very, like in this bold, exciting industry, that is podcasting and Latinos are hot now. Everybody wants to create content for Latinos. So under we can't compete necessarily with a lot of money. But we can compete with like the same challenge. If you are looking coming here to just grow on a hierarchy and become I don't know there are not there is not as much space as up but there is a lot of space to build your personal brand to represent the project to to grow as an as a producer. And to to make sure that you can bring your own stories and what do you not like to have? You have to be like really that reporter with a lot of that you're hungry to bring those voices and to find it and we're gonna make sure that this happens. And at some point, people will usually have left our team in 2027 people left our team that was a big challenge for the small team of 20. And, and it's like when people are ready to go they just come to talk to us and we just help them in the next stage. And we have been very proud of what they have done next because at the end, we had a bunch of friends. What I feel now I mean, having settled is that it sounds beautiful. What I feel now is that it's challenging, and to create for us to create more like job descriptions that are not just filled by a person or like, for example, these days, our team are traveling, presenting there are so many things happening, like people are traveling, we have a live show, you know, like we feel that we need somebody taking care of traffic, you know, like these kind of things that are more like, like, like, and I'm thinking how can I do that who's the right person to do it? I don't think you know, I can do that. Those like micromanagement anymore. I still do it. But I don't want to do it and I'm also like, not as good at somebody else to do it. And, and these are the challenges that we're facing now. We I think that the good part is that as a team, we face this challenge together. And we try to I mean, I try to explain to my team is that a company is not something that you people come and say oh, I want to give you feedback and I'm like, thank you so much. But yeah, and I take the feedback that managing a company is something that you do every hour every day, you know is not something that happens one day to the one so he's like finding our own path, talking to your team making sure that they know what you're doing and that the if they don't know that you can communicate to them they can ask it to us is Kietzke and this is what I have learned I guess is that we are like working with people.

Caithlin Mercer

34:16

Do you have the resources in place to take a break?

Speaker 1

34:20

No, I am supposed to be on a vacation but it's not working. Vacation I have only word and I was talking to some of my colleagues yesterday and it seems that it was not clear because at the beginning I didn't disappear from slack and I was like oh you know guys this is not working. I'm gonna accept it from slack but then I realized that something was kind of like, not falling or like not completely tight. So I came back and and I and now I need a vacation from the vacation. I'm from

Unknown Speaker

34:50

will work on that that.

Unknown Speaker

34:51

I need that. Molly will take it in January.

Caithlin Mercer

34:54

The next milestone

Speaker 1

34:56

I want to stop thinking about is not working very well, but I'm trying and keep trying. Yeah,

Caithlin Mercer

35:04

I've got an interesting question here for you from Diego and I'm not going to mangle your surname Diego but he is Colombian American and he's been living in the UK since 2020. And he says it says this Latin American population is smaller in the UK compared to the US but it's significant and growing. And he's wondering if there's been any conversations about broadening broadening Radio Ambulante Anna Leelo to the other side of the Atlantic and shedding light on the issues and stories of Latin Americans and lettings communities within the UK.

Speaker 1

35:43

Actually, they're gonna have good news for you. Like UK is the 1234 I have a note here 566 country that listens to the ambulance there and the fifth is Canada. So we have like this, like many listeners who could listen from like overseas we are listened to from like 100 countries. Just tell you about the audience. 50% kind of like in both podcasts are a bit more Freudian rival and they are based in the United States like 20 30% or no 40% Now like It's like in the in Latin America, but we have always like we always had listeners in the UK, UK in Canada. And I think but we don't look like the true is that this is good news. But the truth is that we I mean as you ask the question Diego I don't think we will looked in into that audience enough as we do in the United States with Latinos in the US maybe because we're based here and our business relationships are here. But we receive donations from from many places like many members are in in Europe and actually we have now now a new leader of communities, who is a new person who came to a team to really like work with the community and and he he came and said you know what we have like so many people interested from Latin America and every time that we do a live event is like at 6pm on this like at time New York Time Columbia time you know, and then those listeners when you have event at noon, they come from Europe and other sides of the world. So So yeah, thank you for reminding me. And we for sure can do better. Actually seal we are in yes our VP and host of ambulante lives in London and and also our scientists 100 year lives in Sweden. For sure we can do just invite them to like things to talk to events to listening clubs. They will have

Caithlin Mercer

37:43

and if anyone has lettings base stories from the UK that they think you should be covering can they send them and they send stories suggest

Speaker 1

37:54

salutely We want to go we cover Latinos everywhere like really like Latino Americans everywhere.

Caithlin Mercer

37:59

Brand. A question from Monica before I go downstairs to the fellows in the room. Monica says she's a very big fan and Has there ever been a story that impacted you more than you expected it to? Know that that last clip we played

Speaker 1

38:17

a game on you go with different kinds of stories, not only stories, I mean the stories we have a different narrative ours if you don't know if everybody watched I don't know Shrek or like any like frozen whatever it is like child's movie you know like the the storytelling is like yeah, they take you there you're so happy Oh, they connect it's over you like you know like so. So he's not somebody says like they oh you wait, why? Do you produce like so sad content that is not content is compelling. Like we because we want you to put like in the like and in the shoes of the characters. We also have like, even like the funny stories have like those moments. So like those stories from Colombia, like the one that we listen to land or Cheema Florida, I'm not sure if it's related to the longest night about an incident in Colombia his story like really like touched me as well is like the when the the Palace of Justice in the same 30 years ago was also like, there was like another incident in column that mark the sort of Colombia I was very touched but but the stories or the stories about like people who lost family members, that is one colleague who scanners and Pina touched me very, very much sometimes. Oh, there is this story from Argentina called Janaina resist binaries and like everything that Anna disproves ramble, and is it's incredible, and it's about a transgender girl, and how her mom goes into this path of like, understanding what she needs and it's it I think that the Saudis have rambled and they what I like is that you have like the, we can talk on these kind of stories. You have the personal experience, or the family experience that probably we can relate to. You have the legal sides of it, very well investigated. And also did you understand how this works in this country, but how it works somewhere else and how it works in my country, you know, you ask many questions, and also, like all these cultural beliefs that can be challenged and need to be challenged also, like sometimes. So So those stories, the stories that that they'll sell these like really like they play with my emotions because I I asked myself questions and and yeah, they they really like are very compelling. And finally, I'm gonna mention one that is very, I don't know is the one that I have listened to the most is called Toy Story is about. This is a we have the voice of a Carla Suarez, a writer from Cuba who lives in in Lisbon, and it's amazing. It's just amazing. It's just so compelling. She has a personal essay about Cuba. That is so, so wonderful. It's just, it's just my favorite I guess.

Caithlin Mercer

41:08

I'm Luca, can I go and learn learn some Spanish and listen to it at the same time. Yeah. Download loop. On my list looper. I'm gonna go downstairs to the seminar room where the German sellers are and ask Brett to ask his question. Brett, you're on mute.

Speaker 7

41:38

Oh, sorry. Click the button below to mark. Oh, hi Catalina. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for talking with us. I was just wondering, given the runaway success of radio Milan today, have you done trainings and or been approached by other non English language podcasts and startups in order to sort of try to impart some of your knowledge on how to break into this English dominated market?

Speaker 1

42:08

We use so let me clarify your question is if I if we have if we have drained Spanish language, podcast or English language, or I guess Spanish language you were talking about,

Speaker 7

42:20

not even necessarily just Spanish language, but just non English language podcasts, maybe startups, you know, podcasts that have been sort of trying to break into the English language dominated market.

Speaker 1

42:29

Yeah, so we, since we launched and because the project was kind of lonely like a loner podcast, then you have to go live Latin America and even though we had like, less episodes, produced many media medical leaks from Latin America ask us for to teach workshops that we did at the time we did. It was hard for us because at the end, we are a production company and every time you take one of the total one producer from your team, to teach at the time, like just losing those five days or that week of leg training, you know, it was it was hard. So we stop and and we we realized that that was not we were not able to, to incorporate that into our business model. And another time, like 10 years ago, five years ago, seven years ago, we wanted to like produce more content, Find more stories, bring more resources to travel, and so on. So So we created that a site of called let's call it Oh, sorry. My husband escaped from a long trip. I have a back here. He cries. It's just nice. It's alright. And then yes, just throw this neck I'm sorry. in advance. So So we created this decide we have a website called Escola. Romulan thing we started creating these like educational resources for for like people who want to do this. Danielle also, like at some point before, he was a novelist and a journalist and he became like, I don't know savvy, I guess after like years working for ambulante. He teaches now. He's at Radio teacher at a Columbia University. So he learned how to teach, but that's good, but bad on the other side, because he teaches all year long so he doesn't want to teach on the side. But we participate. Now that our team is bigger many people have been teaching workshops, we have been teaching during the pandemic, we we taught many workshops online that was very, very, very successful. So we're gonna continue to do that. We love to transfer our knowledge and not only on the production side, but also on the model. On the business side is a lecture in our experiences is you might be used for certain people you can copy paste a business path, but you can like maybe like, get inspired and and adapt, you know, to your own company.

Caithlin Mercer

44:55

Rarely do when you live by that so I mean I can I can attest. I've got two questions, you know, that kind of complemented each other ones from Alexandre Fernandez, who's a Colombian living in the US and the other is from me, Ross, out of greatness from Costa Rica. And Amy says you spoke about the fluidity of the linguistics and the cultural borders across Latin America in the US, which is inspiring but at the same time, Latin America is so diverse in so many ways, and has been challenging to choose stories that are representative in such a large region and other founder ads. How do you balance North America versus central versus South America and how do you feel about the terms lettings as an American centric view on us

Speaker 1

45:50

Oh, then that's like very controversial. I'm gonna answer that just saying that i There are people who want to be in the identifiers Latins, my respect that I feel. Latina. Latina American is the way identified myself when I am asked, but that you understand why Latin X like or Latina is another way of like people. Some people want to be identified as some or people feel that that's unfair that they doesn't cover everyone. I feel that everyone should do that. Decide what how they want to be identified as and and I don't have a problem with people using that term that represents some members of the community who are not really they don't want to be Latina or Latino or Hispanic. And I'm fine with that. So I'm not sure if I have much to add to add there. And on the on the first question, can you repeat me first question again, please. Oh, yeah, the diversity. Yeah. So what we do is that we we go behind the study, we don't try to I think in a Lilo, for example, we have ELO has built on 100 over almost 140 episodes, the squealed of like the news, the most important news in Latin America in the last two years right. So so if you even if it's newsy when you listen to to a story today about the elections like for example, last week, so last Friday's episode about elections in the US, and you want to learn more, you can go to another episode in depth before that we cover the North election in the US and we're talking about these information flying between Columbia, Minnesota to Florida via WhatsApp, you know, like so. So maybe you can learn more unbuilt, like under understand something so I think this is like a quilt of like, of like pieces like pieces that can help to add context and learn more. In LatinAmerican in we always use one story one country and our subject I mean they do is that is your real team. They do that but I'm part of the eyewitness those conversations and and we try to diversify but sometimes you have to come back to the same Chela again, you know. In the case of rumble and we, we try to cover until we work with freelancers as well. Freelancer producers and try to cover all types of stories sometimes. Like if we lose, for example, the true reporters as we are in the United States, we stop covering United States as well. So we try to bring more of those stories is hard. But we are not trying to to just create this general profile. Of the of Latin America we feel that a story. A wealth of story is universal. And I think we want to unpack things that are happening to this character on that in that very particular place, but also is about the human experience. And how people relate to like, maybe having empathy, stop being fearful for your neighbor next door or like learning certain things. And I think we can ramble on too because at some point people when you are in the United States, people just refer to Latinos or like everybody's the same. And we co founded this project with what two people one Colombian racing, California Danielle, Peruvian grew up in in Birmingham, Alabama. I grew up in Colombia. One of the I grew up in Colombia also she studied here the other one was born in Washington, you know, like and so many people so it's, we wanted to present this diversity from like the from inside the story, and just making sure that this was universal, so people can go back to that. So in Romulans is more like the episodes are more Evergreen. And we try to cover gender issues into the LGBTQ communities. Hopefully, like we cover those love stories or not is not all LGBTQ. Let's talk about this legal case right? Only legal case and human rights now we want to is just a human experience and how like families relate how people react, the good and the bad. And and then and he's just trying to find producers everywhere. That's probably what a what we're trying to do.

Caithlin Mercer

50:17

Remember to tell the love stories. There's very, very short questions here. But a lot of people are asking, where how can we sign up for those workshops that already are in milan.org?

Speaker 1

50:32

A Yes. So we we have done them part of of overriding goal and the first is a face that we launched two years ago. Or three years ago and that repeated now they are becoming part of our membership program. So one of the rewards when people want to join the description and we are actually editing will close to launch our end of the year campaign which may look like we just log is like climbing on power then it's so stressful every day we have a girl is amazing. She's you know like we need it. So. So what we are adding now these these workshops also that are recorded on there as part of the of the rewards of the perks for this campaign. And also when we teach these workshops that are online we that we want to continue doing to continue to do so. So we are now sitting on on on social media usually we have oh, it comes at Western Romulans on Twitter. We are an Instagram I haven't been asking that question. You can sign up to our newsletter that is amazing because we have a newsletter and and every Friday members of our team recommend things on Friday also like they let you know about the the episode of the week. And Lila has a newsletter. It also agreed that has a summary of Musa LatinAmerican also like let you know on Friday that these new episodes and recommends things but they will have great recommendations not related to anything so so via that newsletter we announced when we have workshops and it's a good way to be informed of everything that we do live events around the world and within America and so on and talks that we do like this and everything

Caithlin Mercer

52:20

that summer so sign up to the newsletter and become a member and you know what to ask for for Christmas.

Speaker 1

52:27

And I guess I need to know assuming that maybe you don't you're not familiar with riaan Bula antes Wrathion voluntad dot o RG is the website. org and we find that's your starting point to find everything.

Caithlin Mercer

52:42

Yeah, I'll pop that in the chat. Just before I come to that question. You'll see downstairs had a question for you. And let's see if we can get to your see. There we go.

Speaker 8

53:00

Oh, thank you for a very interesting talk. I wanted to ask about translations. I think you mentioned something like a story works best when it's told in the language of its characters. And I can definitely agree and see the value in that thought. But I'm also wondering if podcasts especially the ones where there is lots of storytelling and investigation and narrative works taking place. A podcast that is really heavy to produce good work when translated. I'm from Finland, which is a small language area and we obviously translate a lot of stuff into Finnish language but for some reason we don't really do translate podcasts into Finnish language even though I could see that maybe some podcasts good work because like he also said good stories are universal. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1

54:02

Yeah, sure. They continue to experience translating podcasts, episodes that were successful. Some people now that there is this boom of the podcast and they want stories from LatinAmerica they say oh, why don't we produce these and just translate it. And people think that this is just translating, but in audio is not just translating is just like producing like another episode. Probably some of you are familiar with the audio production and narrative and is really like not as easy to produce because in order to be compelling and really like have the experience of like having intimated it really reaches your your brain and your ears, it has to be well told. So it has to be and also if these episodes are long you want the to the voice to maybe not having like super that heavy accent or like you know like I mean things that will really keep you on the story is even in the press. So some people just they just translate and characters and create a podcast but we have done in the past. For I'm gonna mention one episode that we produce with Radiolab it's a it's a great podcast in the US if you're I don't know if you're familiar with it. We produce a story called The survivors. Sorry, and this is tells a story about a couple in Cuba. It's an amazing story. We could produce that story with Radiolab and regular and the producer work on both versions. Then the English language version is called the free keys because they were part of this movement called the fracas in the 80s. And and it's those versions is like the same story but it's like different story, you know, like a slightly different story because they created two versions and I will love that collaborations and they were complementary, but it was interesting how we will cover Cuba on at the same time on different, slightly different way. We did an episode from a Lilo that that told the story about Venezuela's who have migrated to Colombia and this character moving back to Venezuela because there was a crisis or from Ecuador. I think he was moving back to Venezuela by walking. It was very compelling. Was blows my mind Mariana Zuniga from Venezuela and then we collaborated withdraw translation and NPR, Abacus by NPR and she created a version for them that told the same story but that might mean his story the story of the character but on a new version, so this is a good way to do it. There is something called or like we said slang for radio for audio that is called a brain dump. And I don't know if it's if you know that so I am sorry if it sounds like so sometimes you just like sit with the producer with Mariana for example, and you say okay, Mariana, tell me the story of a I think Orlando is the name of the character. Tell me his story. Tell me what happened and she tells you the story in English and you can maybe play some audio clips and voice over it or like you know, like do the technique and and to do it. I feel it's a pity that that some of these stories have not been translated because it's expensive at some point we used to subtitle like, as you saw today that that Caitlin did this exercise we used to do it in English. Now we publish on our website, translated versions of the script. I think this is neat. Like money, resources, do it. We don't but I think it's very valuable because also like we don't speak Finnish but I'm sure many people who love to learn about or know like, stories like that, that we and also like I would love to learn more about stories from philanthropy,

Caithlin Mercer

57:37

certification, new new revenue, new revenue opportunity coming up. We are running out of time and so I'm very sorry to those of you in the q&a who I haven't gotten to, but I would be very remiss in November 2022 not to ask you Catalina about the deck birch site and Elon Musk and how is this going to affect your business if at all?

Speaker 1

58:05

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's affecting everyone. I think we don't know what the rules of moderation will be. And we're seeing some of these I guess, but the responsible thing to do is to look that we're looking into that now. What happened with all the content that we have built on Twitter for like 11 years I leave on the I personally live on the Twitter universe. Don't tweet a lot. Repeat a lot. Get informed, you know, like many probably have you relate to these. And it's worrisome but I think we can't go just like that because we need these voices. We need these stories. People are still there. I just hope that that we won't be I mean, the censorship, you know, like, it seems that we, we we are seeing maybe like I don't know if we're seeing the fall of Twitter. I just hope that we that we are not seeing the the the end of a platform that that I feel I found before very democratic, where you can have like also obviously there are trolls but where you can have like a lot of like interactions with people who aren't with anyone you can have like a million followers and interact with someone with 200 followers and just have a conversation and react and interact and and I think that was the very valuable notice is optimistic.

Caithlin Mercer

59:27

Resume with pain for verification and we'll ready on the line to be paying for verification.

Speaker 1

59:35

I'm not sure if we're gonna do that. We'll I think we're gonna play first with our community and see what's going on. We have we all everything that we have built has been organic. We will do that and we'll see what the algorithm I'm gonna show you what's more, like, you know, like bipolar if like the owner of the company or the platform, you know, so, so we I think we need to wait and see what happens. I just want everybody to know that we're gonna stay and and we'll see how it goes. With our community. Hope we won't lose contact. Yeah, yeah.

Caithlin Mercer

01:00:16

Thank you so much for the amazing hour. I could always come away speaking to you going I could speak to you for another hour. So thank you Karolina. Please try to get a holiday from your holiday.

Unknown Speaker

01:00:29

Go. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. So

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