Evergreen Podcasts, an Ohio-based podcast production and distribution company, is expanding into multilingual podcasting in an effort to reach a global audience.
The company will be partnering with one of its top shows, the HR-focused Chad & Cheese Podcast, to create multilingual content available in four languages in addition to English. This will include French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.
Veritone, Inc., an AI platform developer, will be working with the podcast using its technology to transcribe and translate episodes into the desired languages. It will also apply a ‘multilingual synthetic voice model’ to the host’s voices so that the audio stays authentic to their identities.
"The pandemic and the subsequent trend toward a work-from-home world means recruiting and workforce issues have truly gone global,” said Joel Cheesman, co-host of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. “Publishing our podcast in multiple languages to support a more globalised workforce just makes sense."
This announcement is part of a growing trend towards multilingual content, and a number of US podcast companies have announced similar moves this year, including iHeartMedia, Vice Media Group, and Tinkercast.
According to the Global Podcast Listener Forecast 2021-2025, Sweden has come second to the UK in increasing podcast listenership with 34.6% of its internet users listening to podcasts this year. Additionally, podcast adoption has had standout growth in Latin America, exceeding North America and Europe while China had the fastest growth in 2021.
“There’s definitely a big trend in international growth over the last few years," said Dave Zohrob, co-founder and CEO of podcast analytics service Chartable speaking to DigiDay, "so it’s not surprising that publishers are looking to expand their offerings.”
