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China Podcast:

Where are we? Where

to go?

While 2020 was marked as a banner year for China Podcast, the industry re-
mains niche and faces heavier censorship.

By Ryan Li in Shanghai

hen Shawn Gong initiated January 2021. and went on to discuss self-identity of
his programme Liqi X Pod- “Podcasts have drawn much atten- Asian Americans.
Wcast (利器X播客) in January tion in 2020, and I would like to have As a member of “Generation Z”
2019, his goal was to find out how my own show at the beginning of a herself, the 24-year-old lady wants
Chinese podcasters produce their se- new year,” Chen says. to do something new in the podcast
ries and to provide practical informa- market. “I’ve always wanted to be a
tion for beginners in this field. critic discussing internet phenom-
Having interviewed around ten enon from a youngster’s perspective,”
independent podcasters in China, he Chen says.
found that it is easy to join but diffi- The podcast industry in China
cult to stay in the industry. witnessed a boom in the last three
Gong says podcasters have to de- quarters of 2020, with thousands of
cide what to talk about and whom to newcomers like Chen joining the
talk with when preparing for an epi- field. According to ListenNotes, a
sode. Discussion outlines have to be podcast search engine and database,
written and communicated with guest 6,539 new Chinese podcast players
speakers in advance. joined the market during this period.
“It seems easy to simply talk in Podcast is nothing new to China.
podcasts, but it takes great effort to Podcast programmes such as Anti-
produce inspiring contents,” Gong wave (反波), in which the hosts exam-
says. ined Chinese media in a critical way,
First episode of Chen Caiwei’s can be traced back to 2005. But it took
2020 Boom podcast. a long time to build an audience.
Chen Caiwei is a bilingual reporter
and a former English podcast pro- Her first episode was about YouTu- Play With the Rules
ducer based in Beijing who used to ber Uncle Roger, a Malaysian Ameri- While 2020 was marked as a ban-
produce works for other programmes. can famous for criticising westerners ner year for China podcast, podcast-
She decided to start her own show in for wrongly cooking egg-fried rice, ers are wary of censorship as popular-