Pod Digital Media is bridging the gap within podcasting’s racial divide

US podcast ad spending is set to cross $1B this year—Pod Digital Media is ensuring Black and brown podcasters are getting the money they deserve

Danielle James

May 12, 2021

144 million Americans listen to podcasts and advertisers are recognizing this shift and putting dollars into the industry.

Podcast ad spending is becoming a new source for revenue spend for advertisers that are looking for new and additional ways, outside of radio, to advertise. Podcast advertising is a great way for companies and brands to reach a diverse audience. According to Nielsen data, non-white adults represent about 33% of the US population, yet they make up 41% of total podcast listeners monthly.

Pod Digital Media, the first multicultural podcast agency network, has released its first app, featuring shows hosted by podcasters of color. PDM’s mission is to not only promote multicultural podcasters, but also drive revenue by connecting them with blue-chip advertisers. theGrio sat down with CEO and Head of Partnerships Gary Coichy to discuss PDM and the benefits of the platform.

Haitian-born advertising exec Coichy quit his day job in 2018 because he wanted to close the racial divide in the podcasting industry. He explains, “I regularly saw big brands challenged with finding and connecting with multicultural podcasters and podcasters who didn’t know how to attract sponsors.”

PDM is a platform for both podcasters and advertisers alike. It provides information about a show’s audience, including total time spent listening, where listeners dropped off, their location, time zone, gender and more. This data is beneficial for podcasters who are looking to improve and streamline their content, while discovering their true audience.

It’s also great for advertisers who want to reach a specific demographic. These metrics also feed into programmatic ads advertisers can run via pre-rolls and takeovers within the app, offering podcasters additional ways to earn revenue while providing advertisers with valuable creative space.

The PDM Virtual Recording Studio offers a suite of tools to facilitate creating podcasts. New and experienced podcasters can create their shows right from their phone. Podcasters can download their show to their phone or cloud or host the show on PDM’s servers free of charge.

Coichy proudly shares, “When we launched Pod Digital Media, the intention was to democratize podcasting for multicultural voices including access to advertising and sponsorship opportunities.” With PDM, creating a podcast becomes easy and monetizing it—even easier.

Coichy explains the power of the PDM app: “Anyone can create a podcast or add their existing show to our platform. Whether you’re just starting out or have an established show, podcaster may create an account directly on the app from any iOS device and begin listing and publishing their show.”

Gary Coichey. (Credit: Pod Digital Media)

While other podcasting platforms are inclusive of multicultural content, PDM is focused on it. Coichy says, “Podcast Digital Media solely represents multicultural voices that are often underrepresented. Podcast listeners can find a variety of shows that reflect their interests and points of view.”

By Spring 2021, more than 400 multicultural podcasts will appear in the app. PDM hosts exclusive shows, including “Head in the Game,” by writer Rob Hill, Sr., as well as “Ebro in the Morning,” with Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Stylez. Listeners can download the app and browse more than a dozen categories of podcasts, including health and wellness, sports, news, and more, from multicultural hosts.

One of the campaigns Coichy is most proud of is working with actor, recording artist, and “The Guys Next Door” podcast co-host Mack Wilds. PDM partnered him with Lexus on their 0-60 campaign.

He shares, “The brand tapped ‘The Guys Next Door’ for a special podcast episode that reached more than 100,000 impressions within two days, across social and audio.”

If you are looking for a podcast platform filled with Black and Brown voices, check out PDM. Coichy states, “While large media companies hiring Black talent as podcasters are among our biggest competitors, multiculturalism is in our DNA. Our app makes it easy for content to get discovered and not get lost in the noise of Apple and Spotify. For brands, we are the centralized location for Black voices.”

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