Inside India’s podcast generation

Earlier this month, portion chatting with Vir Das astir his caller memoir, The Outsider, helium told maine his agents had nudged him to constitute the book. In part, due to the fact that it “felt similar a earthy vocation progression” for a mainstream stand-up comic. Most publicists contiguous would concur that celebrities would payment from a divers scope of offerings, from books to streaming shows. Now, you tin adhd podcasts to that list.

Chances are that each personage you travel has made podcast appearances, oregon person their ain shows. Such arsenic Bollywood histrion Ananya Panday with her So Positive podcast, oregon entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, oregon cook Ranveer Brar, oregon so Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made his podcasting debut earlier this year. The caller Bihar predetermination saw Prashant Kishore, Tejashwi Yadav and Chirag Paswan doing a circular of podcast appearances successful the lead-up to the polls.

With its relaxed, casual vibe and freewheeling conversations, podcasts are inactive a comparatively young medium; they person been astir for conscionable implicit 2 decades. In India, it took disconnected successful a large mode during the pandemic, erstwhile the movie and unrecorded performance businesses pressed pause. Folks stuck indoors became devoted listeners to immoderate took their fancy: history, self-improvement, existent crime, popular psychology, politics, oregon bully old-fashioned comedy. Genres that are inactive highly fashionable with Indian listeners.

An manufacture successful flux

India ranks 3rd globally successful podcast depletion (after China and the U.S., according to PwC’s 2020-24 report). In 2020, the state had implicit 57 cardinal monthly listeners, portion existent estimates spot that fig supra 100 cardinal — with the industry’s full worthy being projected to scope $2.6 cardinal by 2030.

The wealth radical have, of course, taken announcement — upscaling their investment, and carving retired a caller abstraction almost, particularly successful presumption of promotions and marketing. Though precise advertizing gross figures are hard to travel by, the expanding fig of ads successful podcasts are a wide indicator of their success. Sponsorships and different routes of gross are besides opening up. “While caller creators volition instrumentality clip to marque money, for those with the close premix of contented and reach, determination is wealth to beryllium made,” says Aditya Kuber, Vice President of Dentsu Podcast Network. “Host fees tin commencement anyplace from ₹30,000 an occurrence and spell up to ₹2 lakh oregon more. Even autarkic podcasters, if they power their costs, person a amended accidental to monetise their shows now. There are a batch of folks who are making meaningful money, ranging from ₹50,000 onwards.”

An abundance of escaped contented and debased subscription prices are important factors down India’s podcast boom, arsenic is the caller upswing successful Indian-language podcasts. A visually-forward young demographic is besides driving the biggest displacement of 2025: podcasts giving mode to vodcasts.

No longer conscionable for the ears, podcasters present travel with movie crews successful tow. In February, YouTube announced that it had 1 cardinal monthly users watching its podcast content. (The level has upped features for podcasters too, from having them motion up for their ads work to providing much robust analytics, and utilizing the algorithm to urge podcasts to users.) Since then, Spotify, ousted from its archetypal place, is aggressively trying to drawback up. Top podcasts specified as The Joe Rogan Experience and The Mel Robbins Podcast are present publishing successful video.

“Vodcasts are the norm,” says Kuber. “India is simply a video-heavy country. YouTube is truthful profoundly embedded successful the depletion signifier that if I said there’s a caller podcast, radical volition inquire what’s your YouTube channel?” The video platform’s scope makes find easier too, and their monetisation exemplary is good established.

The communicative today

“When we started successful 2018, it was a nascent scene,” remembers movie professional Aditya Shrikrishna, who co-hosts The Other Banana podcast, a venue for in-depth conversations astir Indian cinema, particularly Tamil films. “Podcasting was niche not conscionable successful presumption of who was doing it, arsenic the large guys hadn’t yet caught connected to the medium, but besides the listeners. Also, podcasting was inactive precise audio-focused successful those days. Nowadays astir of the large podcasters volition person videos, by default.”

In the past fewer years, “podcasts person grown and diversified”, says Dhruvank Vaidya, Head of Music and Podcasts astatine Spotify India. “While it’s existent that Bollywood celebrities similar Ananya Panday, Sonali Bendre and Soha Ali Khan person each started podcasting, creators from crossed fields person grown successful popularity, too. Raj Shamani [Figuring Out], and Aishwarya Singh and Aryaan Misra [Desi Crime], for instance, person gained a dependable and loyal basal connected Spotify. The quality of long-form conversations is that determination is abstraction to physique a loyal basal of followers successful antithetic areas of interest.”

That past enactment by Vaidya is important since it speaks to 2 cardinal ways successful which the podcasting manufacture has matured successful India: long-form contented and devoted instrumentality followings. People person shown their appetite for longer, elaborate conversations. Ranveer Allahbadia’s interrogation with erstwhile cricketer Yuvraj Singh a mates of years agone was implicit 150 minutes long. Episodes of Nikhil Kamath’s WTF Is podcast are often implicit 100 minutes.

Tripwire of recency bias

Compared to a fewer years ago, podcasters similar Shrikrishna are uncovering a much clearly-defined marketplace now, acknowledgment to a substance of online metrics that assistance them support way of which episodes and issues are garnering much eyeballs, and the accrued societal media beingness of Indian consumers. The Other Banana has an ongoing bid connected the filmmaker Bala’s filmography, for illustration — the absorption connected idiosyncratic directors was validated aft Shrikrishna and his co-hosts recovered that the bid had returning, dependable audiences.

But, with a greater marketplace comes recency bias (prioritising caller information) and a definite magnitude of accent connected ‘trending’ topics. “I deliberation the strategy has changed, for aggregate reasons. When we started doing podcasts, we didn’t truly person an thought of who the people assemblage was, what worked, et cetera. We could person truly left-field topics for our episodes,” says Shrikrishna. “Now, determination is simply a definite marketplace for podcasts, truthful we effort to sermon much caller films. At the aforesaid time, wide entree to streaming means much audiences tin easy presumption the movies we are talking astir connected the podcast, caller oregon old.”

A caller signifier of celebrity

This caller integer epoch has spawned a caller people of personage — the ‘Internet famous’ person, a demographic that includes podcasters and YouTubers. “Today, the explanation of ‘celebrity’ has undergone a transformation,” said Vaidya. “Raj Shamani is India’s biggest podcaster and Bollywood stars crossed the committee diagnostic connected his podcast, particularly erstwhile they person films to promote. Desi Crime is not lone a world-class podcast, but erstwhile they [the hosts] published their publication based connected the podcast, it went consecutive to No.1 [on Amazon]. Another hugely fashionable 1 is the Tamil podcast, Schumy Vanna Kaviyangal Bodcast [a amusive instrumentality connected a assortment of topics], which is 1 of the biggest successful the country, by consumption.”

Vaidya points to the professionalism of these creators arsenic the defining origin for their success, which speaks to the wide professionalisation of the podcasting abstraction arsenic well. Consistency and prime are the key. “All the 3 podcasts I mentioned person been churning retired episodes each week, sometimes aggregate times a week, for 4 to 5 years. That’s nary accident. Their episodes are besides good researched, they wage attraction to item and don’t instrumentality their assemblage for granted. This shows successful the prime of the episodes. As a result, audiences don’t conscionable stick, they go fans.”

Looking astatine 2026

After the archetypal detonation of podcasts station the pandemic, the Indian podcasting manufacture has softly recalibrated. As we participate 2026, expect podcasts to proceed their cautious expansion, and for podcasting conversations to go adjacent much ‘mainstream’.

According to Shailesh Sawlani, Country Manager (India), Audible, “The aboriginal question of podcasting successful India was marked by an detonation of originative experimentation, a clip erstwhile caller voices and ideas were uncovering their spot successful a caller and breathtaking medium. What we’re seeing present is simply a earthy improvement of that phase. There’s been a determination towards much purposeful, quality-driven storytelling. Listeners contiguous are seeking depth, authenticity, immersion, and trade successful the stories they take to perceive to. That displacement has encouraged creators and services alike to absorption connected thoughtful curation and formats alternatively than measurement alone.”

And, of course, expect much vodcasts. Despite audiophiles being sceptical astir this caller form, it’s present to stay. And with adjacent streaming platforms getting acceptable to marque the alteration — Netflix is joining the bandwagon, processing exclusive shows and licensing existing hits successful 2026, according to Bloomberg — we tin enactment tuned for truthful overmuch much successful the caller year.

The writer is moving connected his archetypal publication of non-fiction.