‘Diverse topics on podcast are good, but content should be authentic’

A freelance content writer Shubham Bhatt has been talking about topics like LGBTQ, child sexual abuse, education, emotional wellness, etc, through his podcast Subconscious Realities. “Though these topics are very important to discuss they are not being discussed. I chose these topics due to my personal experience in the field of education and the lack of knowledge regarding sex education, gender bias and a very orthodox approach in society. I have a few friends from the LGBTQ community and they face a lot of struggles in their lives while expressing their orientation. I have a friend who runs a campaign against child sexual abuse and I am highly inspired by her work. These are the reason for choosing these sensitive topics and I wanted to make people aware of these issues because they can be solved easily with proper knowledge and education,” says Shubham. In his podcast channel, the youngster has also interviewed Mr Gay India 2020 Shyam Kannur and Deepti Mirani who is the head of the campaign Aao Baat Karein against child sexual abuse. 

Through her podcast channel Kadhai Osai, Deepika Arun has been sharing works of popular Tamil authors. She tells us that in the content-overloaded internet era, it is the responsibility of the creator to put out verified content. “Many have started podcasts because they have a lot of free time and it has become a double-edged sword. If you are taking sensitive topics like sexual abuse, LGBTQ, women empowerment, etc, either you should be an expert in the subject or it can be an interview with someone who is in that particular field. There should be authenticity -- it will add a lot of value to the content. We don’t know who all are listening to our podcasts and how they will react to it. So, it is the responsibility of the creator to share authentic content,” says Deepika Arun. 

When the lockdown started in 2020, there was a dip in the number of people listening to podcasts. But after that, it picked up because of the screen fatigue that followed. “Podcast has been constantly evolving and growing in India. Creators from other platforms like YouTube are actively jumping into podcasting. They have realised that the engagement they get in the long-form of content on podcasts when compared to any other medium is unparallel. While listening to podcasts for 50 or 60 minutes, people are also engaging in some other activities like cooking, working out, walking, driving, etc. There are a lot of content creators and this leads to niche content. That’s the reason why people select sensitive topics, but they should be extremely careful while talking about it. It should be verified and authentic,” says Bijay Gautam, co-founder of WYN Studio.