Government establishes $160m EU-funded program to boost podcasting and audio | culture

industry Podcast And sound is becoming increasingly important, as evidenced by the measure that the government plans to announce this Tuesday and that EL PAÍS is presenting: the creation of a financing program, called Espacio Audio, to “promote, revitalize and internationalize” an industry dedicated to sound in Spanish and the co-official languages ​​of the country, which include Podcast, but also music, audiobooks, and other formats. Espacio Audio is part of The Strategic Project (PERTE) for the New Language Economywhich will mobilize an investment of 160 million euros through loans on favorable terms for companies in the sector and that comes from the second phase of the recovery plan, which was requested from the European Commission on June 6, and will be managed by the official Credit Institute (ICO).

“PERTE of the New Language Economy seeks to promote the Spanish language and the common official languages ​​in the fields of technology, science and culture,” explained sources from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (which cooperates on this initiative with Culture and Sports), “a few months ago, it was decided to allocate part of The money from the recovery plan is in the form of soft loans for an ecosystem of businesses of this nature.” The choice was the audio sector, since the audiovisual sector, films and series have already received more financial interest. “There was a general demand in this regard,” the sources said.

The recipients of the assistance are the producing companies Podcast or audiobooks, but also some from the music sector, such as concert halls or music festivals. In fact, the Espacio Audio Presentation Gala, which is taking place this Tuesday, has been organized in collaboration with the State Coordinating Cultural Association of Private Live Music Venues (ACCES), and is taking place precisely on the eve of European Music Day.

Among the objectives of Espacio Audio, according to information from the Ministry, are to create more industrial fabric in the audio sector, to encourage the creation of more content (emphasis here on cultural diversity or gender equality), to collaborate with internationalization or to improve training. On this last point, for example, it is envisaged to “intensify training in the field of intellectual property rights to improve the position of creators when it comes to monetizing their creations,” according to the project file. The department headed by Nadia Calviño and that of Miquel Iceta will co-manage the operation, which will evaluate the evolution of Espacio Audio every six months. In addition, the creation of a space acoustic forum involving sector players and an Ibero-American acoustic forum to facilitate collaboration and co-production with Latin America will be promoted.

Digital audio consumption is going strong in Spain: it has 19.3 million listeners, according to Digital Sound Studio 2023 Made by IAB Spain, the association for advertising, marketing and digital society. In other words, 60% of Internet users over the age of 15 consume digital audio. he Podcast It is the third most listened genre (54% of users listen to it Podcast), after online music (77%) and live online radio (61%), although it is the fastest growing compared to previous years. Regarding advertisements related to Podcast and digital radio, it ended 2021 with a growth of about 38.5% in Spain, according to a market study by Atresmedia Publicidad by Price Waterhouse Coopers.