In a project of Suspilne Culture – “No brotherhood – there wasn't one, isn't and will never be” people from across Ukraine's creative and cultural industries explain in their columns, how Russia has been trying to destroy Ukrainian identity for years (or even centuries).
All materials will be published in both Ukrainian and English. Russia's informational aggression has been a part of the daily discourse in Ukraine for a long time, especially after Maidan in 2014. Now we need to make this context available abroad to show that we've been fighting this war for way more than just a month.
Oleksii Kushnir, program director of IZONE Media podcast studio, talks about the dependence of the Ukrainian audience on Russian-language content, changes in this paradigm, and how Ukrainian podcasts manage to expand despite difficulties with Russian-centric platforms.
Ukrainian version is available here.
Translated from Ukrainian by Maryna Bakalo.
Three years ago, when Oleh Idolov and I were launching Podcast Pidcast I got the feeling that Ukrainian podcasts were the most underground among everything underground. The shows with appropriate sound and content in Ukrainian could be counted manually. Let alone the charts of the most popular in Apple Podcasts or in any other applications, where everything was full of Russian content.
In addition to the Colonial Dependence of many Ukrainians on the aggressive culture of our Russian neighbors, the blindness of platforms also played its role. While Ukrainian authors counted only on their own strength in promoting content, Apple created a Russian office, tying the region to it.
I can't say that the only problem was the platform, which ignored the existence of other cultures, languages and nations. In fact, we ourselves did not always have enough skill in communicating the market need to pay attention to an independent country.
It sounds cynical, but even today, companies that suspend their work in Russia use the logic of the market rather than the logic of values. For example, Spotify stopped its work in Russia not because of the war of aggression, but because of the law on fakes. Not the war, but military censorship, pushed the company to take this step. At the same time, Spotify continues to ignore the existence of podcasts in Ukraine and does not allow Ukrainian users to listen to them.
Besides, I am not saying that the problem is only in the platform, but we again found ourselves in a situation where only we can help ourselves. Platform owners, of course, pray for us, but the market must be pushed independently. And, you know, we make it.
In early April, Dmytro Palchykov from The Ukrainians Audio noted that the top ten in the main Apple Podcasts chart consists only of Ukrainian podcasts. This is the first time this has happened in three years of my monitoring. This, providing the previous facts, is a significant achievement for the market.
First, don't be skeptical about some chart in some application. This is direct access to the huge audience of this application, which is also pre-installed in all iPhones. This is a so-called distribution of trends on YouTube.
Secondly, this is a consequence of the work of all authors of Ukrainian audio content lasting for years:
- creating thousands of podcasts on different topics in different formats;
- show audience development and marketing efforts;
- community monetization;
- opening up advertising and partnership opportunities;
- thematic events;
- attention to podcasts of major media and influencers.
Of course, thanks to platforms, we would have achieved more and done it faster. However, finally, we can confidently say that Ukrainian podcasts are slowly but still replacing Russian ones from the field of attention of our country's residents. The war also played a role here: it's hard to listen to mumbling from abroad when you are primarily interested in the fate of your loved ones.
Well, these are just the first signs, but I am convinced, there will be fewer obstacles in the future. After all, the dominance of neighborhood content is not a unique problem.
At the beginning of podcast development in Slovakia, the charts were filled with English-language and Czech-language content. But the kink was provided by both authors and listeners who are more relevant to local content.
Without going too deep into the numbers, you can understand that podcasts are becoming an important source of information for Ukrainians as well. And it is Ukrainian podcasts that continue to be such a source. This is evidenced by both the basic logic and the persistence of Ukrainians in fighting for the right to everything that is theirs. And the platforms will adjust.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Suspilne Culture.
Further reading
- Why we should stop looking up to Russian media personalities
- How did the Ukrainian music market come to be so dependent on Russia for the past 30 years
- The Chauvinism and Necrophilia of Russian Literature
- What is de-Russification and why it is happening in Ukraine
- How Russian culture urges murder – explained by Yurii Bereza