Early podcasting in Spain and the UK with Pilar Orti and Craig Wealand: S9E4

Language podcaster Craig is from the UK but has been podcasting in Spain for many years. Alternatively business podcaster Pilar has the opposite geographical podcasting experience being from Spain and podcasting from the UK for a long time. And yet they found each other and created a podcast about the scene in Spain some years ago. In this conversation with Craig and Pilar we dig into what they learned about podcasting in these two countries, how the space has changed since their podcast was live and how indy podcasting differs from business podcasting. These two folks are knowledgeable and are tapped into the space in a passion led way so there's a lot to learn from them. Let's get to it!

Pilar's podcast: Adventures in Podcasting

Craig's podcast: Inglespodcast

Their podcast on the Spanish podcasting space: https://enclavedepodcast.wordpress.com/

Original publication date: July 22, 2022

More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Is there a Spanish word for podcast or is it just podcast with a Spanish accent?

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Podcast. Podcast with a Spanish accent.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

But there's the what's it called, Pilar, for the world of podcasting? Is it Podas? It's not Podasphere, is it?

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Podcast Fera, no?

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Podcast Fera. Yeah, the Podas. Ooh, that's Fera, which is really nice.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello there. Welcome to another season of Geopaths where I talk to expats and geopaths around the world about different niche things that help them stay connected wherever they are. Because let me tell you, being multicultural in your brain and existence is not an easy thing. I say this as someone who just moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, and is slightly uh turned around, shall we say. This micro season of four episodes is going to be about podcasting. Uh, podcasters from different parts of the world are going to share their experiences. We're going to start off with Spain, which is this particular, actually, Spain in the UK, which is this particular episode. Uh, language podcaster Craig is from the UK, but has been podcasting in Spain for many years. Alternatively, business podcaster Pilar has the opposite geographic podcasting experience, being from Spain and podcasting from the UK for a long time. And yet they found each other and created a podcast about the scene in Spain some years ago, which I think is pretty friggin' amazing. Uh, in this conversation with Craig and Pilar, we dig into what they learned about podcasting in these two countries, how the space has changed since their podcast was live, and how indie podcasting differs from business podcasting. I love that topic. These two folks are knowledgeable and are tapped into the space in a passion-led way, which is where I personally live in the podcasting space, and I bet you do too. Let's just get to it. Let's meet Craig and P. Lover. All right, Craig. So you said you have a lot of stats that you found recently. Can you first tell us like where the stats are from?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yes, the stats are from a study that eVooks recently did, and they reflect podcasting listening ear in 2022. So it's basically similar to the Edison research, but it's done on a platform called called eVooks, IVO X, which is very similar to iTunes, I think, or um Apple Podcasts, but uh for Spanish speakers. Spanish speakers I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, it's a distribution platform for yeah. Okay. And what is the one stat that uh really stuck out to you?

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Well, I was interested to see that 90% of advertiser advertisers say that podcasts are the most integrated format for growing brand awareness, which means that a lot of money seems to be going into podcasts because Spanish companies want to make people more aware of their brand, which I think is good news for podcasters, it's good news for the industry, and I think it's what we've been seeing in the US and in the UK too, and other countries, but it's really nice to see it growing in Spanish speaking podcasts as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Wow. Okay, so does that mean that the majority or that many, most of let me do that again. Does that mean that most of the podcasts in the Spanish podcasting space in Spain, not in Latin America, but in Spain, are company podcasts that are branded?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

I I don't know about that. That wasn't something that was focused on in the study, but what they're saying is that a lot of brands think it's one of the best ways to incorporate their values into podcasting is by sponsoring podcasts. So there's been an uptick in money that's going into podcasts from Spanish companies.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Oh, that's interesting. Oh, okay, okay. I thought it was because branded podcasts are companies podcasts that they're putting out there to like basically it's a kind of like a new business card for companies.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Right, because they want to strengthen their blood their brand. So they're not necessarily interested in uh return on investment on ROI, they're interested in strengthening their brand, getting the message out there. Another stat, well, one stat from this study is that podcast advertising investment has increased by 27.5% this year, and we haven't even got to the end of the year yet. And that's based on the World Advertising Research Center. So that's data confirmed at WARC.com. 64% of listeners don't mind hearing ads in their podcasts. Yeah. But they don't mind it, they expect it.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, it sounds similar to the American market on those points. Um, so I think that's a lot of stats already. So I actually want to go into both of your experiences, and I think before we do that, we have to explain the connection to Spain. So Dilar, but um basic uh let's start off with you. Um are you are you from Spain?

SPEAKER_04 5:14

I am from Madrid, yes, originally. So I've been in London since 1990. And uh and I'm I I have yeah, I have I met Craig online some time ago, and because he was based in Spain, we just connected and we started speaking. So yeah, so I'm Spanish, I do speak Spanish still. Yeah, uh so yeah, so that's my connection, that's where I was born and grew up.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Craig, what you live in Valencia, Spain. That's how we actually met.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Right. So it's gonna be it's kind of the opposite to Pilar because I was born in London, but now I live in Spain.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

So what year did you move to Spain?

SPEAKER_03 5:53

97. Been here 25 years.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Oh, you almost moved at the same time, like just a seven-year difference between the two of you.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Yeah, so it's kind of interesting. I mean, uh Pilar's got that Spanish background, but she lives in the UK, and I've got the British background. I live in Spain, so I think it complements very nicely, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Very much so. So do you both listen to podcasts from Spain now?

unknown 6:20

No.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Very few. Very few. Occasionally I listen to a podcast by a good friend of ours called Sune, and he has a podcast called what's it called, Pilar?

SPEAKER_04 6:34

It's called uh Quiero ser podcaster is what he calls it now.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

So he is one of the people in the Spanish podcasting podosphere, as they say, um, who uh reports very well on podcasting, he's very much in the nose. So from time to time to catch up with what's going on, I listen to Sunis podcasts, and I recommend Spanish podcasts to people who want to learn Spanish because my niche is teaching languages. But apart from that, with Pilar, no, I don't really listen on a regular basis to Spanish podcasting.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Gotcha. Pilar, I know you have many podcasts. Do you listen to many podcasts in languages other than Spanish?

SPEAKER_04 7:17

In English. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I listen to podcasts all the time. I do listen to one in Spanish called El Futuro del Trabajo. This is by some guys, again, that I have a connection with. So I find myself that I I tend to listen to shows where there's some connection to the host or something. And I because I have very little, very few connections with Spain, and I don't feel like oh every everyone seems very new, but um yeah, so I yeah, so I don't listen to any in Spanish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Okay, fair enough. Well, I think it's a good time to talk about the podcast that the two of you had together about the Spanish podcasting scene. Is that correct?

unknown 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Back in oh my gosh, okay, enclave de podcast, which I'm saying totally wrong. Sorry. Uh, what what year or your what years? Because it went for a while, didn't it?

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Yeah, it was 2016, it started, and it went into 2017, and we had 20 interviews with podcasters, uh, mainly from peninsula Spain, mainly from from here from Spain, but I think Pilar, we also interviewed um a couple of people from Latin America, Josh Green from Mexico. Yeah, but it was mainly we started a podcast because we wanted to find out what was going on in the podcasting space in Spain back in 2016-2017. That's the motivation behind it.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, I get that. I uh a lot of my podcasts tend to have like a central like need, like a research kind of need too. So I totally get that. So what after all of them were done at that time, and I know they finished in 2017, but at that time, what were the main takeaways that came out of those interviews?

SPEAKER_04 9:07

The biggest one for me, which was also one of the reasons to start the podcast, was I realized how big and wide the podcast sphere was. Like I thought it was I I didn't realize how many people were already podcasting. So that was one. I'll I'll give Craig the floor, but I've got one more.

unknown 9:26

Craig.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

No, you carry on. You do carry on below. What's the second?

SPEAKER_04 9:30

Oh, I'll carry on then. And the other one was like, and I don't know if it's just where we landed, but a lot of it, a lot of the podcast really had that spirit of what I said, the podcasting spirit, more than what was happening, at least at that time, with what I was hearing in the UK and the US. And it could have been that that's just the the you know, my niche that I was listening to. And it's I found in Spain there was a real we're talking with friends and we're doing, but we still our audio is still great, we still have great podcasters. So the the professionalism of of the you know the podcasting brand of the podcaster and the podcast was really good and high quality, but the spirit was really about the friendship, the talking and everything. And I found that very refreshing.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Yeah, absolutely. There was a lot of um creativity in the space at that time, and I'm sure there still is, but it was very fresh, it was very motivating uh for me at least, because it seemed to be uh the the cusp of podcasting that was similar in the US maybe three or four years before. So it was very exciting to us to interview podcasters in Spanish, and to be clear, it was a bilingual podcast, so we would interview Spanish podcasters in Spanish, and then after Pelau and I would speak after the interview in English, comparing what they had told us with what we knew about the podcasting uh situation elsewhere, so it was uh that kind of take.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Oh, I love that. Well, is there a reason why you started that podcast in 2016? Was that like the beginning of the podcast of a podcasting boom in Spain?

SPEAKER_02 11:15

It was Pilar's idea. How did you become how did you think of it, Pilar?

SPEAKER_04 11:20

I think it was because I think it was that curiosity of is is this is this something that people are doing in Spain? And if they are, what is it? How are they doing it? Who's out there? I think it was so I think there was a sense that it it was already like in the UK and the US, it was starting to become a little bit mainstream and we weren't hearing that much, or at least I wasn't here, so it's like, oh, it must be happening. And it was, I think it was much more developed than we thought.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Wow. And it it sounds like like I love when you said Pilar, the podcasting spirit that is absolutely where like the indie scene in the US, or just the indie scene in general, of folks who just are like, there's an interest, there's a desire, there's a need, I'm gonna record this process of talking to people or like just talking about this topic. I love that kind of momentum in the independent podcasting scene. Is is that uh not is it still strong? Was that very strong in most of the interviewees that you had back in the podcast?

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

Yes, it was. And also another thing I noticed was that the audio quality and the technical ability was very, very high as well. So the podcasters we spoke to in the industry in general, because I went to a couple of conferences around that time in Spain. There's a national conference called J Pod, Hotopod, which is organized um annually. And I went to a couple of those conferences, and the the level of presentation, the level of technical knowledge about podcasting, and the and the enthusiasm and creativity was really, really strong. So yeah, it was lovely to see. It was really nice.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

I think maybe it wasn't being shared as widely as like you can you you come across in the I remember then in the UK or in the English speaking scene, a lot of podcasters were sharing what they knew that were sharing, but it was very difficult to find the Spanish podcasters weren't online sharing as much, but the knowledge was was there.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Yeah, a lot of passion for the medium.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. Oh wow. What were some of the topics of, or were there particular top podcasting topics that seemed more popular than others at that time?

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Well, we tried to get a cross-section of what was going on. So some of the podcasts were what you'd probably find in most podcasting countries: marketing, technology, that kind of thing, interview-based podcast from that format perspective. But also there were quite niche podcasts, weren't there, Pilar? There were podcasts about very niche topics. One guy was focused on architecture. I'm trying to remember now the interviews. Oh, yeah, it's a meaning. It was a while, it was a while ago, Steph. So I'm struggling here. But I remember I remember there was a wide selection of topics, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

Yeah, I remember Emilio, he was an architecture, but what he used to do, he'd be like really in the front line with people in the construction industry. So, you know, with people who didn't know. That was interesting, actually, thinking about it. That what we discovered was that the audience still didn't quite, the audience wasn't as big in Spain. Like the word podcast, many people didn't know what it was. And I remember Emilio, he'd used to he would interview people for his podcast who'd never come across the term podcast before. So I think that that was the the audience has really picked up, like everywhere else. Sure. They've they've got more of an audience now. Um, we also did uh someone, someone who was doing a science podcast as well, photography as well. So we did that, we did try and go wide. Uh I think it's if if I could add just something that was very interesting that started to happen was that um the the mainstream media started to really go very strong into there. The Grupo Prisa, remember with podium, or was it podium? They started with El Esplandor, I think it was called, which was um uh drama, a drama podcast. So suddenly there were suddenly this big uh uh media company was saying, right, we're gonna invest. And I think that it was interesting to be in that uh in that context when that happened, because that was very important.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah, and I remember podium because they had a really successful podcast called El Gran Napagón, which is the big blackout which has recently been made into a TV series on movie star TV. So you've heard of podcasts being made into TV series, and that's a classic example of a podcast platform that had a huge success and then carried it on into TV and video. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Wow, wow, wow. I wanted to actually bring in let's see if this works. Can you actually see the page with the podcast information?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

There we are.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yay! So bilingual show. I love the artwork, it's so cute. Uh uncovering Spanish podcasting. Very cool. Um I just wanted to bring this up real quick to show the the folks that are watching the video version of this, some of the different folks that you interviewed during this podcast. Um yeah, right.

unknown 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

It was a really fun project. Um very enjoyable.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

What's really interesting. I was listening today to Sune. So um Craig had met Sune, who is a guy who's been doing podcasting now probably for more than 10 years. And actually, he he one of his things he really wanted to do was go full-time as a podcaster, and he's managed to do that now. So he's a podcast consultant. Yes, it's really, I mean, following him has been very interesting. And he was very well connected within a certain uh uh group of podcasters. So through him, we started to go in. And I was listening to his show to to catch up with it, like Greg was saying. And he mentioned that he was taking the course of uh Jean Boluda, who's who's someone again that we interviewed, and it's really interesting. It's very interesting to see, yes, to see that they have some of them are still there. I mean, the the Future for Work guys who were the last ones I interviewed at Hog, like once we'd already closed the podcast, they're still going as well. So it's very interesting that a lot of them are still podcasting.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Well, that does bring up the question. How did you select the guests for that podcast?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Ooh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Because it sounds like you tapped into people who stayed with it, and so there was a really uh there were the obvious ones.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

I mean, just going very quickly through that list as you were showing it, Steph, there were the obvious ones who were big in the space at that time. But um, Pilar mentioned to me early on, and I agree, that it would be nice to get a cross-section of maybe the not so popular podcasters that aren't necessarily the big names in Spanish podcasting. So we tried as much as possible to vary it and get a variety of people on the show. So, but uh yeah, obviously that the big names were obvious. We reached out to them. Um, luckily, most of them said yes. I think some declined, but how did we get the the smaller guys? Do you remember Pilar?

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Probably. Well, I think probably we asked the our guests, and then also we I think we used to ask them to recommend some podcasts at the end. So maybe that helped as well. I think that was really important for us as well, to ask them to recommend some more shows so that we could see and how how that was was growing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yeah, recommendation played a part for sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

I went I knew a podcaster who right before I left Shanghai in 2020, um, he had a podcast that was so difficult. It was a local podcast, but he like the structure seemed difficult to me. Um, like the person that he would interview someone, and then whoever they recommended was the next guest, and whoever they recommended was the next guest, and so it just kept going like that. And that's a layer of reorganization that I was like, wow, that's beautiful. So it was all like the whole season, people were connected to each other the whole way through. It was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Nice, yeah, that's a good way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, so yeah. Um let's let's transition into now. Okay, no, wait, I'm still curious because you're okay, Craig, you're from the UK and Pilora, you're there now. Do you both listen to any British podcasts?

SPEAKER_04 20:09

I do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Okay. How would you compare the the British scene? Because I know it's uh I know and don't know a whole lot about the podcasting scene in the UK. I do know that the London, what is it called? The London Show conference was there like three four months ago.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

I'm totally disconnected to be honest. I think it's very interesting with um as as as as the space has grown and become mainstream, I feel a lot more disconnected from what's going on. So I've really stuck to, I'm probably listening to a lot of shows that I was already listening to like a few years ago. Um, and what I have seen is that it is very much like any mainstream art form. You've got the big players and then you've got the indies. And there's very, very different. Like you I when I whenever that conference that you said that I know where it's host hosted, but I never go because I look at the program and I go, that's kind of who I'm interested in. Yeah, this is not like that person that I met some time ago that is just doing it from you know, like like me from my bedroom and stuff. These are people that have whole teams, and yeah, and they're very good. It's not yeah, it's just when you do something for the love of it and you've been there with everyone who's like putting it together. So I think that in the UK I know it's grown and it's and you can feel it. Um I get a lot of pitches from podcasts from people who want to be on one of my shows. And it's just another form of people getting out there. And because I listen to a few shows of similar themes, you see like the same guests going. I mean, that's just this is more global than UK. So I think it's just gone mainstream.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I think that's a really interesting thing to highlight is that as a listener, Versus as knowing about the industry or being involved in the industry can be two extremely different things. Because podcasts are that personal that you can really have your favorite podcasts and not know anything about the scene itself. It's like that's that's business. I'm over here listening to content I love. Like they can be very different things. That's that's really interesting. Craig, how about you?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yeah, but it is interesting. And I and I think if you're a podcaster, as Pilar and I both are, and you are as well, Steph, that I think that tends to shape your listening habits because I, as an independent podcaster, prefer indie podcasts to mainstream podcasts. Now I do listen to the odd mainstream podcast, but I'm very drawn to indie podcasts on all sorts of topics because I know they're podcasting from their bedroom or they don't have a team, it doesn't sound overproduced, and I'm gonna get a perspective that I'm not gonna get when I turn on my TV. So I like that independent feel to it, and I get drawn to those kind of podcasts wherever they come from, if they're coming from the US or they're coming from the UK.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Agreed. My heart really lies in independent podcasts. I do listen to a fair bit of network ones just when I need like deeper dives that do need a whole team kind of thing. But the vast majority of the what 200 that I subscribe to are are more on the independent side. Independent or now, I'm listening to a ridiculous amount of business podcasts to try to be a better entrepreneur. And a lot of those are um this that word is so hard to say, entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Anyway, yeah, um I wish the French, I wish the French had a word for it. That's that's the thing. They don't have a word for entrepreneur. That's the problem with the French.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

We're done here. That was it. I can't I can't stop. But I okay, but here's the thing. I almost feel like the the independent business podcaster is like a third, like I think the there's the independent scene and there's the network or or corporate scene, but I feel like the smaller business, like small business branded podcasts, I feel like those are kind of like a third space. Like they're not fully network and they're not fully independent. Like there's a a nuance to that too.

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Yeah. I I agree. And and it's the fact that when you're so I have because I have quite a range of podcasts, and I I am very um aware of what space I'm in. So one of the my my the show that I've been doing for the longest is my business's podcast. So it's how you know I get I've had clients that have been listening to me for ages there. I have clients who then go and listen, and I'm very aware of that audience. So it's very different to how I show up in like the one about food. Um can I make a very quick point about something I just thought about the UK podcasting scene is that the BBC, which of course has been releasing their shows as podcasts for ages, and that's actually how I got started in listening podcasts, they've now got an app, BBC Sounds, and they've actually removed some of their shows from places like Apple Podcasts. And I think that this is my my rant, but I think that's such a shame because it's it's well, one, it's good because um maybe more people don't listen to BBC shows in Apple Podcasts, just uh as a widening thing. I love I listen to lots of BBC shows, but it does mean that the it's a way of segmenting and just bringing it's that spirit of podcasting is gone rather than saying we are throwing stuff into the ether. Now it's like, no, no, we want you to come into a space and we're gonna keep you. And it's that shame of going that what's always happened is that you go to a space where indies and commercial and wonderful, they're all mixed together. And so you come in for a BBC show and you stay for the indie as well. Whereas if the if the larger companies are starting to pull people into their space to listen to their audio. So that's also something that I think is we'll see what happens with the space.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yeah, I think a lot of um I think the BBC are losing a lot of talent. I heard that recently, they're bleeding talent. A lot of people are leaving. So I think the BBC are more interested in continuity and staying as the BBC for as long as possible, rather than being creative and inventive and nimble, which is what indie podcasters tend to have on their side. They can change direction, they can change format, a lot easier than these big companies.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

And that's so true for a lot of radio first organizations, programs, companies that have moved into or haven't even even have been in the podcasting space for a while, is they don't have that uh flexibility that Craig was talking about. They're trying to do radio in a variety of different ways, but not in the ways that podcasting in in podcasting, whereas doing podcasting would be better served to the listeners. Because listeners, I think, are getting more savvy with finding stuff that fits them better. And with that, they may very well start rejecting the more traditional uh radio to podcast programs, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

And and of course, not the BBC specifically, because they rely on their license fees, but many huge podcast platforms that are earning money from advertisers, they don't have to count out to the advertisers' whims, and they can be more flexible with their content, let's say, and more more imaginative because they don't have to they're not accountable to the advertisers.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, that's true, that's true. But that splintering off and isolating uh that Pizar was talking about is also happening somewhat with Spotify, with bringing shows in and taking away the ISS feed and not distributing it anywhere else. Like it's it's happening in a few different spaces right now, and I I don't know what to make of it at this point. Um because I've always known, like felt the network indie divide very acutely. So it just feels like, yep, that's happening. That's that's still there. So but I don't know, it's it's it's an interesting time in a medium that's what 20 years old, that it's changing so much now as opposed to like years ago.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Something that was in the well, I'm just gonna say going back to where we really started with this was the Spanish podcasting scene, those um conferences that I went to in Spain, the J Pod conferences. I remember back in 2014, I think it was, where I did see a big divide between the indie podcasters that were the hardcore, this is my art, man, don't interfere with my art. And then there were the platforms like Podia that Pilar mentioned that were really taking from radio and planting their podcasts on their website as an RSS fee, but it was basically the same thing radio programming on demand, and there was this big divide. So that was an interesting thing that I saw at the conference, very different sides opposed to each other, the indie podcasters on one side and the corporations on the other.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

And one thing I was listening to Sune say about the all the different platforms that are emerging now in Spain for listening to podcasts. And in his episode, he was going through what they were recommending in the different platforms, and it looks like each platform is going to start to have its niche. So I think another thing we could find is that you might become a Spotify user, or you might become a well, a BBC sound user, or you might become a Podimo user on an Audible user. And maybe the platforms also start to focus on a kind of listener or on a kind of content. So that was interesting as well, that the platforms where you can listen to has also grown in in Spain a lot.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

So true. It's so true. I was shocked when we moved to Europe in 2020. I was shocked that when I said the word podcast, people assumed I meant Spotify. Because I was I was so used to so many different platforms being, you know, whoever's choice, well, like whoever's the listener's choice, that when everybody just started to assume and they'd be like, Oh, you mean Spotify? Or is it is it on Spotify? And I was like, I don't really think that's a great app for podcast usage. It's not super user-friendly for that. It's amazing for music, but for podcasts, it's very clunky. And I was so confused. But they've done a really good job. Well, clearly they're from Europe, but they've done a really good job of making sure that Europe thinks that they're all about podcasts. No need to look elsewhere. Um, okay, so let's bring this back to let's wrap this up by talking about, let's wrap this up by talking about your podcasts. Who wants to go first? I'll start. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Holy cow. Five. So if you speak Spanish, you want to listen to Gastro Nostalgia, where with the tagline is Hablar de comida es un placer, which means talking about food is a pleasure. And that's all we do with my co-host. We talk about food. Uh, if you like listening to stuff about online collaboration, you can listen to 21st century work life. That's been going on for ages. And you can listen to Management Cafe, where I'm now having conversations with my co-host who's in Australia. I love podcasting. The Gastro Nostalgia co-host is in Spain. Uh, Maya, who I co-host with in the 21st century, is also in Spain, in Valencia, Management Cafe. I also am co-host with someone who's based in London, boring, uh, for my pocket psych, which is the psychology of the workplace. And I'm also part of a team, which is like a whole other uh subject uh of a podcast called Facilitation Stories, which is about uh facilitators, the profession of facilitators. So I love being co-host, which is why I love doing including the podcast with Craig, because I think podcasting is better with friends.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Agreed, agreed. There's stuff that happens when there's multiple people talking that just you cannot, no matter how charismatic you are, do yourself. Yeah, solo show. And Craig, how about you?

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Yeah, well, the same as Pilamin. I I don't like podcasting solos, so I have a co-host. I'm an English teacher. My co-host is also an English teacher, and together we help mainly but not exclusively Spanish speakers to improve their English. And the podcast is at inglespodcast.com.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

And there's an episode with my husband. Oh, really? Yeah, there is.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

When you were in Valencia, that was very cool.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, exactly. That was fun. That was really fun to listen to. Came into the studio with you. Did he record in person, Craig?

SPEAKER_03 33:07

We record in person, yeah. We record in person. It was really, really nice to get together.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

That's super nice, super nice. Okay, and I'll have all those links in the show notes. I don't expect you all to know um to catch all of that. I'll definitely have that for you. And I don't know, any final thoughts on podcasting in Spain, in the UK, the difference between then and now, here and there, everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Well, I'll just say that uh I had do have some figures here which we didn't have time to go into about podcasting in Spain this year, based on that ebook survey, which looks really, really encouraging. It just seems that podcasting is growing here. Yeah, all aspects of podcasting is growing. There's more money coming into podcasting, there's more awareness of podcasting. And in general, I'd just say that it looks very, very good for podcasting in Spain. So it's a space that people should be watching.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Nice. And you're can you send me the link to that so I can include that as well?

SPEAKER_03 34:09

I will send you the link to the study. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 34:13

Yeah. Listenership has grown. I think that's the main thing is that listenership has really grown there as well. So I think uh yes, it's very similar to much much more similar now to, for example, the UK than it was when we looked at it.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

How amazing are Craig and Pilar, right? Oh my gosh. Hey, look, we've got hundreds of episodes of Geopaths for you to listen to. If this sparked your interest in the podcasting side, we have a number of episodes about podcasting around the world, and we've got ones on books, the internet, and and like us being online digital citizens, looking back at our time in a different place, and so much more. We have so many different themed episodes. So I'd like you to head over to the Geopaths Podcast and take a quick peruse through the titles and see what strikes your fancy. For me, if you can see my name here on the screen. If not, I will spell it out to the audio listeners. It's Steph Fuccio. That is my handle all over social media, S-T-E-P-H-F-U-C-C-I-O. Please do reach out. If something resonated with you, please let me know. Steph Fuccio is not only my social media handle, it's my Gmail address and my website, Stephfuccio.com. So if you want to know more about me, my podcast services, and uh the courses and free resources, that is the place to go. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Geopaths. I cannot wait to hear your reaction to these amazing folks.