Written by Benjamin Pius (Publisher @ BMA) as part of the forthcoming Radio Broadcasting Convention – Africa 2026, 1–2 July 2026, The Venue Green Park, Johannesburg, South Africa. Register and view the full programme →
In 2019, Nana Akosua Hanson launched a podcast from her Accra apartment with a secondhand USB microphone, a duvet draped over a clothes rack for soundproofing, and a belief that Ghanaian women deserved a space to talk honestly about money, ambition and identity. By 2023, her show had surpassed two million downloads, attracted sponsorship from a pan-African financial services brand, and been licensed for broadcast on three FM stations. She had, without a traditional media infrastructure behind her, built what the industry now recognises as one of the most compelling opportunities in African audio: a scalable podcast business.
“Africa is the fastest-growing podcasting market in the world — yet it remains the least monetised. That gap is not a problem. It is an invitation.”
Her story is instructive precisely because it did not begin with infrastructure — it began with clarity of purpose and consistent production. That remains the foundational challenge for aspiring podcasters across the continent.
Production quality need not mean expense, but it does mean discipline: a defined format, a reliable release schedule and audio that respects the listener’s ear. The shows that have broken through — Nigeria’s Loose Talk Podcast, South Africa’s The Honest Drug Book, Kenya’s The Nairobi Business Monthly — share this quality regardless of budget.
What separates the podcasts that grow from those that stall is rarely equipment. It is editorial consistency and a producer’s instinct for what an audience actually wants to return to.
On distribution, the landscape has never been more accessible — or more competitive. Spotify now hosts over 100,000 podcast titles with African origin, having invested aggressively in the continent since acquiring podcast network Wavelength Africa in 2022. Apple Podcasts, Audioboom and the pan-African platform Afripods offer broader reach, while Boomplay — with over 100 million registered users, predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa — is emerging as the distribution partner of choice for creators seeking to reach audiences that global platforms still underserve. The critical insight for broadcasters entering this space is that distribution is not a single decision but a layered strategy: publish wide for discovery, go deep on one or two platforms for community, and use your existing FM broadcast signal to drive new listeners to on-demand content. The broadcasters doing this well are not choosing between radio and podcasting. They are using each to amplify the other.
Monetisation, however, remains the piece most African podcast creators struggle to close. Programmatic audio advertising — sold through platforms such as DAX and Spotify Audience Network — delivers CPM rates of between $15 and $40 for well-targeted audiences, dwarfing the returns available from most digital display formats.
But access to these networks requires scale, and scale requires patience. Smarter operators are not waiting: they are layering host-read sponsorships with direct brand partnerships, building paid membership tiers through platforms like Patreon, and packaging their back catalogues as licensed content for FM broadcasters hungry for quality on-demand programming. The podcasting economy, in short, is not one revenue stream. It is four or five operating simultaneously — and the creators who thrive are those who build all of them from day one, not as an afterthought.
At the forthcoming Radio Broadcasting Convention – Africa 2026 in Johannesburg, South Africa, this July, the podcasting economy will be one of the most practical topics on the agenda. Not a theoretical discussion about potential — but a working session among producers, platform leads and commissioners who are already building these businesses, and who understand that Africa’s audio future will not be defined in a boardroom in Stockholm or San Francisco. It will be defined in Accra, Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town.
Written by Benjamin Pius (Publisher @ BMA) as part of the forthcoming Radio Broadcasting Convention – Africa 2026, 1–2 July 2026, The Venue Green Park, Johannesburg, South Africa. Register and view the full programme →
RADIO BROADCASTING CONVENTION – AFRICA 2026 (RAD26)
● Dates: 1–2 July 2026
● Venue: The Venue, Green Park – Johannesburg, South Africa
● Theme: Intelligent Radio and Audio for the Next Generation of Listeners
● Register: radio.broadcastingandmedia.net
