This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

Saavn To Launch 9 New Podcasts In Push For Original Programming

Saavn To Launch 9 New Podcasts In Push For Original Programming
white headphones on top of computer tablet.
arinahabich via Getty Images
white headphones on top of computer tablet.

Music streaming service Saavn took a step into podcasting by launching 9 podcasts under their 'Original Programming Service'. The podcasts will be live from May 1 for streaming on the Saavn App. The podcasts will cover genres such as Music, Sports, Crime, Comedy and Narrative Storytelling.

Saavn has partnered with Indus Vox Media and Arré to produce podcasts. The shows will include two series from renowned radio anchor Neelesh Mishra, a comedy show by Cyrus Brocha and a show on cricket by analyst Ayaz Memon. The company also launched their 'Artist-in-residence' program to promote upcoming musicians. Saavn has roped in popular artist Nucleya as the first in-house artist.

The full slate of Saavn original show:

  • Qisson Ka Kona with Neelesh Misra – 4 episodes/week
  • Trial By Error: The Aarushi Files, hosted by Nishita Jha - 1 episode/week
  • Neelesh Misra’s Time Machine –1 episode/week (launching mid-June)
  • Maed in India, hosted by Mae Thomas - 1 episode/week
  • Cyrus Says, hosted by Cyrus Broacha - 2 episodes/week
  • The Paodcast, hosted by Amit Gurbaxani, Purva Mehra, and Pronoti Datta - 1 episode/fortnight
  • Geek Fruit, hosted by Tejas Menon and Jishnu Guha - 1 episode/week
  • Eat. Sleep. Joke. Repeat., hosted by Karan Agarwal - 1 episode/week
  • TFG Sports Podcast, hosted by Vageesh Bhan, Vivek Krishnan, and Chiranjit Ojha - 5 episodes/week
  • All Balls with Ayaz Memon - 1 episode/week

Saavn's co-founder Rishi Malhotra said: "Podcasting is very big in the US but India is still recovering from FM radio. We want to bring quality original programming to our audience. People like Neelesh Mishra had a limited audience but now through the platform of the Internet, they can have a wider reach."

"We have kept the length of the shows under 25 minutes so people can listen to it while travelling or drinking tea in the morning. Mobile phone acts as a radio and TV both, we want people to carry the music and stories with them in our App. In coming months we will see the response of the users and modify our shows according to that", he added.

"Our focus at Saavn is to serve better content to the customer based on data analytics. After launching our Original series we would analyze parameters like what genre people listen to at what time, what podcasts are shared and listened to the most by users and what are the average streaming sessions. This would help us improve the quality of the shows", said Gaurav Sharma, VP of Data science at Saavn.

Podcasting has been there in the media industry from years in the form of radio programming but downloadable podcasts were made popular by Apple in 2005 when they launched a podcasting channel in iTunes. Users can go into the iTunes after that announcement and listen, subscribe, download and discover podcasts. Later, in 2012 Apple launched a separate podcast app for mobile users. Pocket Casts and Stitcher are some of the other popular podcast apps.

Saavn will face competition from Indian podcasts houses like Indicast and Audiomatic.

Contact HuffPost India

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.