The emergence of native podcasts in journalism: editorial strategies and business opportunities in Latin America

Abstract

This article analyses the state of the art of podcasting in the new digital landscape as well as the structures, editorialstrategies, and business models of native podcasts launched in Latin America over the last few years. To this end, amultiple case study has been made to examine the way new digital outlets are using audio content. This qualitative re-search is made up of a variety of approaches, such as interviews, online surveys of podcasters, as well as the collectionand analysis of secondary data. A specific aim of this comparative study was to include a sample of podcasts producedby thirteen emerging media platforms from eight countries registered in the directory of digital natives conducted bySembraMedia (https://www.sembramedia.org). This is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the diversity andquality of Spanish language content by helping digital media entrepreneurs become more sustainable and successful.Results of this exploratory study reveal that native podcasting in Spanish is still expanding and that where the new me-dia are small in scale, they are more oriented to the full exploitation of the narrative and innovative possibilities of thisaudio format and do not have responding to their target audiences’ needs as their main priority. These new media arefinding different ways to become monetised (mainly content production for clients, sponsored content, sponsorship, con-sulting services, and advertising) and to make a profit