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Podcasting adventure in Indonesia
Good chat: Author and podcaster Leila S
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ood chat: Author and podcaster Leila S. Chudori talks with novelist Dewi Lestari during one of her podcast episodes.(Courtesy of Leila S. Chudori)
More and more Indonesian journalists and authors are turning to podcasting as a way to engage in a public forum on issues that matter to them.
These local podcasts are mostly available through Spotify and other channels, such as YouTube.
The popularity of podcasts started to increase in Indonesia around last year, when Spotify expanded its contents from merely offering music to also offering podcasts, making these programs readily available to Indonesians.
Ranked among the Top 20 Podcasts on Spotify Indonesia, according to Chartable, Do you see what I see shares a compilation of true horror stories sent by listeners via email to host Rizky “Mizter Popo” Ardi Nugroho. “For standards, I usually ask that [the stories] be based on real events.”
Initially, Rizky was not that interested in the horror genre. However, as his podcast started to grow, he noticed how entertaining these stories were for most people and learned something new along the way.
“Indonesia has a lot of these stories and it is somehow interesting for me to listen to things that I’ve never heard of,” he said.
One of the more recent local podcasts is from author Leila S. Chudori, who is also a veteran journalist, movie reviewer and former radio broadcaster.
Leila’s podcast, called Coming Home with Leila Chudori, recently featured actress Dian Sastrowardoyo as a guest. During this episode, literary lovers and Dian’s fans alike can enjoy her sharing her experience reading JD Salinger’s 1951 novel Catcher in the Rye.
“When we read books, we can transform the text into images and emotions in our own theater of mind,” Dian said. “I believe that as adults we need to train our imagination to cope with the ever-changing economic landscapes.”
Every Wednesday, Leila’s podcast hosts well-known guests discussing the books they love and hate, hoping to engage fellow bookworms in a mind-stimulating forum. The audience can also have their say on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram while the podcast is on air.
Local online media outlet Magdalene.co, known for its firm stance on feminism and diversity, now runs its own podcast called Magdalene’s Mind.
Magdalene.co cofounder and managing editor Hera Diani said the podcast was actually a transformed version of the website’s old radio show with U-FM, which started in 2013 and ended in 2015 because she had to take maternity leave and the website’s cofounder and editor-in-chief Devi Asmarani had to go to the United States.
“Recently, our listeners requested through our social media accounts that we start a podcast to revive the radio show,” Hera told The Jakarta Post. “When we still do radio, we have to tone down the issue to cater to a wide audience, but we decided we could express ourselves more freely through the podcast.”
Both Hera and Devi host the podcast with numerous guests.
The first episode of the podcast was launched in early 2018, recorded in the office of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), addressing the common stigma against feminists, with people often mocking feminists using pejorative terms “social justice warrior” or “angry feminists”.
“We haven’t been able to monetize beyond the royalties, though. Advertisers are not aware of the availability of podcasts as an advertisement channel. In the US, where the podcast tradition has already been almost mature for 10 years, advertisers have started to place their products in these channels,” Hera said.
Writer and podcaster Pangeran Siahaan said both advertisers and podcasters needed to be educated about podcast production before starting a business deal.
“Basically, media business is a simple business, because there are only two models: you sell to your audience or you sell your audience,” explained Pangeran, who is the cofounder and cohost of the Box2Box Indonesia podcast.
“Selling media can be a hard thing to do in Indonesia, so the least we can do is sell the audience to a third party, such as an agency, but the question is whether the market is educated enough about what a podcast is or not.”
Box2Box Indonesia, which started as a soccer-focused podcast called Box2Box Football, has grown into the first podcast network in Indonesia and currently hosts 14 podcasts on various topics, including sports, film and television, politics, current affairs, parenting and popular culture.
Monetizing podcasts is also tricky because it is very difficult to measure their exact audience segmentation according to Gentle Media Network producer Lisa Siregar, who also works with Leila and Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG) to develop podcasts.
“The measurement of a podcast audience is not as exact as how AC Nielsen works out the socioeconomic bracket of television program consumption,” Lisa said.
— Audrie Safira Maulana is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
