Key Factors Impacting Podcasting on a National Level

Broadband internet penetration and language are the two most important factors impacting podcasting on a national level.

It is easy to predict the impact of broadband internet on podcasting. Clearly, people with low-speed dial up connections will not regularly download huge podcast files. As to broadband, in France and Germany, 11.1M and 12.4M subscribers have high-speed Internet, respectively. China has about 30M subscribers. On the other hand, Australia, Italy and Spain have only 3.5M, 7.7M and 5.9M broadband subscribers, respectively. And judging by local podcast creation, in France, Germany and China, podcasting is flourishing. France produces 3000 podcasts, China 20,000 and Germany 4000. Italy and Spain, on the other hand, produce only about 300 podcasts.

The impact of language is crucial to understand. First, because of language differences, leading podcast figures in one country have no idea what was happening abroad. The French and Germans know nothing of each other, although they may live within a 30 minute drive of one-another.

On the other hand, where there is a common language, the flow of podcasts is very common, such as between Australians, South Africans, English and Americans. Between 50-75% of the podcasts that Australians and the British subscribe to come from the U.S. Spanish-speaking podcasters know no borders either. Of the nearly 500 Spanish podcasts listed on directories in Spain, most actually come from Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

Language can also unite communities disbursed around the world. For example, ‘Afrikaans in Sydney’ is produced by an Afrikaner who moved to Australia and is enjoyed by South African communities around the world.

Other than in the case of common language, however, language is a wall that isolates people. The wall can be very subtle. A German who podcasts in English runs the risk of alienating other Germans, who see this as a snub.

Yet, while France prefers French and China Chinese, English remains the “global” language. In Israel, 2 of the top 10 podcasts are in English. In Italy, two of the top 16 podcasts, and a few of the most popular Chinese podcasts are “lets learn English” tutorials. Bonjour-America is a wildly popular French podcast, produced in English.

The impact of language may decline with video podcasting, as funny videos can be enjoyed by all. Indeed, YouTube videos are very popular in China.