There was a time when podcasts were a breath of fresh air. The slower pace of conversation, and a vulnerable glance gave a peek on the informal and personal life of the guest, and that resonated with the fans.

But, if we talk about the today’s podcast culture, they have become the perfect culinary for hyping brand image and for perception alteration. They do everything like sob story telling, recounting old incidents, getting bullied, getting assaulted and etc. except conveying authenticity.

Nowadays, podcasts are mainly done in a way to promote the interviewee or their services, rather than to shed light on the matter.

If you are an avid YouTube viewer, then you probably are witnessing a rise in podcast content creation. Podcasts, a long-form format which started approximately in 2018 in India are becoming one of the highly viewed content on YouTube.

Mainly sponsored or Paid Content

If you have seen a lot of new and unknown faces on a podcast episode, and that too on a renowned channel, then it is likely a scenario of doing a paid or sponsored episode for the client. Basically what happens is podcasts have become the modern PR method in India.

Earlier what used to happen is that people who were trending on social media for one of the other reasons would be invited by the podcast host.

But now in recent years, what we have seen is that many new and unknown faces are appearing on podcast channels of very high-profile YouTubers and they tend to claim very high expertise in their relevant field.

The sole intent of them appears to appears to promote their business or services or to appear as an expert authority in their field.

Enticed to Say something unique prefereably of shock value

Every content platform wants to give something new and unique to its viewer. Therefore, whenever you see interviews of a certain celebrity on a certain period of time, you’re bound to hear different revelations and different stories.

It is kind of like a rule in the content business and in the news business that the guests are encouraged to give something of a shock value or to reveal something which has not been revealed before. And this is why you can see so many retarded claims on a podcast which you can never verify.

Unverified Claims

Have you heard of the phrase that if something is too good to be true then it is probably not true? The logic seems very apt and a lot of people in India are giving claims just in order to get engagement. And a lot of these claims cannot be verified.

Case in point, there is a YouTube influencer who allegedly talks on every niche from the motivational category to being a finance influencer and to talking about the horror-cult traditional practices in the state of Assam.

Then there is another gentleman who openly speaks against the use of allopathic medicine. And even went on to give the alleged health claims which are not only obvious dangerous but are also unverified from the medical fraternity.

Image White Washing and Narrative Change

Actors and politicians are also now looking to feature in podcasts. As per our conversation with lots of PR agencies, actors and influential people are willing to spend huge budgets to white wash their image or to change the public narrative for the better. A lot of podcasts that you see mainly of actors doing film promotion, are mostly paid. The chemistry of the co-actors that you are being showcased in interviews may not be real. Their praises for each other could be far from truth. But they do it because it gets them views.

Blame the Audience?

A wise man had said that they serve exactly what the people want. If a podcast full of stupid unverified claims with aim of self-hyping the interviewee gets millions of views, what exactly does it tell about the viewers?

Prominent podcast Prakhar Gupta recently highlighted that Indian podcasts are on a downhill and the podcasters have gamed the system simply in order to get more eyeballs. He admits that he had to let go off the podcasting style that he loves in order to get more views. He now opines to do podcasting in the manner which he used to do back in 2022.

Conclusion

There seems to be a saturation where every niche is now being covered by different podcasters. In a country like India, it remains difficult to be unbiased as many viewers are polarised. However, as a responsible content creator, one should have the desire to not spread disinformation in order to get more views.