Goodbye Soundcloud…Hello Anchor?

More Africans are turning to the Spotify-owned platform to start their pods, and the value is obvious.

By Paula Rogo

Each week, I write a column about the growth of podcasting in Africa from my perch in Nairobi, Kenya.

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(August 6, 2020)

For a longtime, at least within East African podcasting, Soundcloud has been a major podcast distributor.

This was for two reasons:

1) for beginner podcasters, the *free* uploads were extremely attractive and

2) it was an easy accessible way to connect with listeners new to podcasting.

There was a period of time in Kenya when it was a must to have your podcast on Soundcloud — even if you preferred other distribution options. It’s still the case today to a point.

Let me digress briefly: I have a podcast, which I recently relaunched after a hiatus.

The pod is called “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing” and focuses on entrepreneurship, business and money for African women.

When I first launched IHNIWID in late 2018, the intention was for it to be a limited series. But I quickly realized that I wasn’t serious about reaching the local Kenyan market unless I was on Soundcloud. I can assume you’ll find this to be the case in other developing countries and regions. So it’s unfortunate, in my opinion, that Soundcloud hasn’t taken full advantage of the podcasting community within its platform.

But that doesn’t matter really…because I believe Soundcloud’s dominance in Kenya is going to start fading. Instead that dominance is being overtaken by Anchor, especially among new podcasters.

Anchor is set up to be a one-stop shop for podcasting.You can perform all your recording, editing, and hosting, either via the free phone app, or online at anchor.fm. And it’s FREE!

The key barriers to entry for many African include price, production skills, and the oft daunting task of distribution and audience development. And it appears anchor helps do away with a lot of that.

The pros of Anchor

• It’s free
• It’s a free podcast host
• It has a free studio where you can record yourself or people in other places
• You can record on your phone
• It has a free editing bay
• It automatically posts your RSS feed on other big platforms
• There are opportunities to monetize with ads

The cons of Anchor

• The quality — everything about production mentioned above is great but I’m not too clear about the quality of the final product. But for a beginning podcaster who just wants to get started, and can’t afford to pay for equipment, studio time or even hosting fees…this is the place to go!
• Intellectual property and ownership- this the biggest con for me and I’m still not clear where they stand on IP. At one point, it was said that by uploading your mp3 files, you no longer own your content. I think that has been cleared up and it’s no longer the case, but it wasn’t too clear to me to be honest.

So you can understand why anchor.fm has been attractive to new African podcasters.

In my line of work with Africa Podfest, I am introduced to A LOT of new podcasts on the continent. Earlier in the year, I’d hear about Anchor every now and then. And of late, since the pandemic, many of the URLs OF NEW PODCASTERS always seems to be hosted on Anchor.

I surveyed some new podcasters from Twitter and the African Podcasters Database who use the platform and this is what they said:

“I think I’m trying to get the simplest possible way to do the podcast. I’ve always wanted to do a podcast.” -Tempest O (Nigeria)

“Easiest option to begin without zero equipment and no technical support” -T.K (Zimbabwe)

“Easy distribution to different platforms” -S.A.G (Kenya)

“Because they help you find sponsorship and are just easier to manage” -Ekua (USA)

“Free, Built in RSS feed generator and distributor, Opportunity for ad revenue, Homepage acts as stand-in website, Editing tools embedded into platform, Mobile friendly because we began recording and editing on our phones” — P&B, (South Africa/Egypt)

“For me it was the easiest option for someone who doesn’t know what to do and is new to podcasting. And anchor also distributes to other hissing sites. And it was free. So I wanted to start here and see how it goes.” — Marsha A. (Kenya)

“It was the most convenient for me, seeing as I am a student and not in a position to pay for subscriptions for uploading extra hours of content. It provides unlimited uploading time and also automatically distributes on other platforms. It’s a Spotify Inc. app, so yeah….”- Gertrude M. (S. Africa)

“I decided to go with Anchor because they distribute your podcast for you to various platforms for free and I could create and produce my podcast by simply using my phone.” — Njoki (Kenya)

“It made distribution much easier and cheaper, the aggregation of analytics and metrics was also one of the factors in our decision.” -Mukuma (Zambia)

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According to a 2019 blogpost, Anchor declared that it was “powering more than 40% of all new podcasts and giving people all over the world the ability to have their voices heard.” . Anchor is, of course owned by Spotify, part of the streaming service’s big purchase of Gimlet in 2019.

If you remember, I kinda skewered Spotify in my first post about their accessibility in Africa. It still stands because it is only available in South Africa, but Anchor seems to be a backdoor way for Africa podcasters to find those on Anchor (VPN-style) and also reach the diaspora, who are big Spotify users.

Things to consider.