Listening to podcasts together became a habit for many locked-down families during the pandemic, but it seems to have become particularly entrenched in BIPOC households, and that’s an opportunity that several companies in the audio entertainment market are starting to navigate.

According to an April 2023 report from nonproft org Kids Listen (Kids Podcasts in the Age of Screens), 59% of BIPOC families tune in to children’s podcasts almost daily, especially households with kids ages two to five.

Asian families (representing 6% of the survey sample) are the most avid listeners, with Latin American families (7%) not far behind. And in a separate research project, Argentina’s KidsCorp found that 81% of kids from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Peru consume podcasts, with three- to five-year-olds emerging as a clear sweet spot.

Anthony Frasier, CEO and founder of podcast production company ABF Creative, believes one reason why family podcast consumption has stayed so strong in BIPOC communities lies in the fact that audio entertainment represents them better than television does. “In the [podcast] industry, independent prodcos are still on equal footing with some of the bigger names, so there’s more diversity and niches than in TV,” Frasier explains. “Podcast creators also still have control over their content.”

Language matters

Capitalizing on this market opportunity to reach co-listening BIPOC households, ABF is exploring what matters most to this audience. And it turns out that language authenticity is pretty important. The company recently produced a Spanish-language version of its 2021 podcast Charm Words (which offers daily affirmations for kids) in response to audience feedback from BIPOC families saying they feel
more represented when they hear someone speaking their language, Frasier says.

When ABF tested the new version of Charm Words in Spanish-speaking countries before launching it more broadly in December 2022, it found that BIPOC listeners specifically wanted to hear their own dialect in the voice track. “Some people told us they didn’t like the dialect of the person speaking because, for example, people in Mexico speak Spanish differently than people in Puerto Rico,” explains Frasier.

The lesson here is that just because you can’t see faces when listening to a podcast, it doesn’t mean diversity isn’t important—in fact, Frasier believes it’s more important in this space, since kids are looking for representation primarily in the way their favorite characters sound.

The Charm Words podcast now includes a Spanish-language version after BIPOC families said that they feel more represented in their own language.

Topic is key

But cultural connection is about more than just the language spoken—it also flourishes in the topics a podcast covers.

BIPOC children’s personal experiences and contexts, such as lack of resources and racism, need to be addressed, Frasier says. And identifying which situations have been experienced by kids in more than one part of the world or more than one BIPOC community is also important. “It bridges the cultural
gap between kids who have unknowingly gone through the same things,” says Frasier. “Creators must try to find those themes that create cultural connections, but we also don’t want to ignore what makes us different.”

Kids Listen CEO Sanden Totten says that topics reflecting BIPOC families make it easier for adults to have conversations with their kids after listening to podcasts. The org’s 2017 Inaugural Survey found that 73% of kids initiate conversations with their parents based on what they have learned from a podcast, and 59% reenact parts of the episodes.

History, science, mindfulness and meditation podcasts are the most popular among BIPOC audiences, according to ABF Creative. And Kids Listen published similar findings in its Kids Podcasts in the Age of Screens report. This study, in which 21% of families surveyed identified as BIPOC, revealed that kids prefer podcasts that tell stories (55%), have science themes (51%) and explore history (31%).

Discoverability challenges

Co-listening and the overall growth of the podcast market are two trends that make diverse podcasts a smart bet for producers right now, says BAFTA-winning writer and producer Anthony Farrell. Major companies including Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have been moving into family-friendly podcasts since the pandemic, and BIPOC families are a prime audience for new creators who want to take a more representative approach to the medium, says Farrell.

The KidsPod app lets BIPOC kids access podcasts in other languages and from beyond their own country’s borders.

But as much as BIPOC families want podcasts that represent them, they are also struggling to find them in an increasingly cluttered marketplace. “BIPOC families don’t know where or how to find audio content for them,” says Frasier, adding that ABF is following a publicity plan that includes local media, social networks and influencers that BIPOC kids follow to ensure they discover its podcasts.

Meanwhile, Jessica Ray and Rachel Lacy, co-founders of tech startup KidsPod, launched their own podcast app in June to help families find podcasts all in one place. This product also makes it easier for BIPOC kids to access content from beyond their own country.

The app acts as a hub for podcasts from third-party companies and “puts kids in the driver’s seat to explore their own interests as easily as they can on YouTube, Netflix or any other streaming platform,” says Ray.

Aimed at three- to 13-year-olds, KidsPod currently boasts a library of 300-plus podcasts, including more than 20 that have been translated into Spanish, such as Brains On (APM Studios) and Tumble (Tumble Media). And kids can access all of this content through a free subscription.

Looking ahead, Lacy and Ray want to target neurodiverse, hard-of-hearing and learning-disabled audiences as well. “Once transcripts become an industry standard on RSS feeds, we have plans for a simultaneous reading mode,” notes Lacy.

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen’s August/September 2023 issue.