Mexico City (EFE).- With the premiere of the tenth season of “El Pódcast de Olallo Rubio”, the Mexican creator celebrates 18 years in the digital audio industry, to which he predicts continuous growth and constant evolution.
“I am one hundred percent convinced that there is still a lot to do, we are still undergoing the process of digitalization of the entertainment media,” Rubio predicted in an interview with EFE.
Although he acknowledged that between 2019 and 2022 there was an overproduction of podcasts, he considered that the speculative bubble, which led companies like Spotify to invest billions of dollars in the sector, did not explode and has gradually been deflating.
“The fact that growth has stabilized does not mean that it will not continue to grow, on the contrary,” he predicted.
A pioneer in the field
After closing the radio station where he worked at the end of the last century, Rubio started his podcast in 2005, becoming one of the pioneers in the format and now allowing him a broad perspective on the future of the industry.
In these almost two decades, he pointed out, podcasts have gone from needing hours to download to playing instantly, from being considered an unknown concept for the public to a mass product, and from generating interest in a few daring ones to forming an industry.
“We have been around for so long that it also touched us when it went out of style, in 2014 many people were no longer interested in sponsoring or incorporating podcasts into their platforms. It was a brief period in which it seemed that it had expired and the opposite has happened in the last decade, ”she recalled.
market growth
The recent growth and room for improvement in the podcast ecosystem, he added, is no stranger to the Mexican market. He, through his independent platform Convoy Networks, is one of the main promoters of it.
“We have the responsibility to expand the market and maintain the level of quality that has been up to now,” he stressed.
Rubio’s long journey and his project were recently recognized at the Ibero-American Sound Creation Festival, also known as Estación Pódcast, held at the beginning of May in Madrid and where he received the lifetime achievement award.
“I’m a kind of grandfather on the ‘timeline’ (temporary line) of the podcast. I’m not that old, but we’ve been at this for a long time, ”she joked.
Tenth season of his podcast
What began in 2005 as “an experiment” has materialized this year in the tenth season of “El Pódcast de Olallo Rubio”.
Despite continuing with his peculiar combination of satire and information, of content that strikes a balance between documentary and sound fiction, the Mexican recovers for this new season some of his most famous characters, such as Betornillo, the American agent Tony Higgins or SuperWoke.
Among the topics covered, he highlighted chapters dedicated to the future of audio, the end of the world and its possible scenarios, or artificial intelligence.
“(The latter) will be with a character generated by artificial intelligence, which will satirize itself,” he said.
where freedom prevails
After spending time on traditional radio and decades as one of the leading “podcasters” in Latin America, Rubio identified a big difference: freedom.
“In all senses: discursive freedom, of time, (that the podcast) is not designed based on the needs of advertisers,” he said.
Rubio defended that any topic fits in a podcast and that there are spaces for all opinions, turning the format into a kind of Galia that resists the attacks of the “cancellation culture.”
“A good example is Joe Rogan in the United States, who interviewed many people (in his Spotify program) who had controversial ideas about covid-19. There were attempts to cancel it, but they couldn’t and it stayed,” he said.
And although in “El Pódcast de Olallo Rubio” he addresses issues such as the “woke” movement (positions of social liberalism) from criticism and humor, undoubtedly controversial, the Mexican assured that he does so with caution.
“I communicate more carefully than 15 years ago, but because I am a married man with an eight-year-old daughter. Self-censorship has more to do with my age than cancel culture,” he admitted.