New Podcasting Rules - Must Build the Industry - Not Just Police It | Business Tech Africa

By Mohale Moloi

Having produced podcasts for both big brands and passionate people, I have noticed a pattern in kick-off meetings. There is a palpable excitement fueled by the belief that setting up these microphones, cameras and having the most interesting guests will lead to a lucrative new revenue stream. People don’t just start podcasts to make money but when I’m working with independent creators who are hoping to build something they can monetise, my first job is often the hardest. I have to look them in the eye and deliver a brutal reality check.

I tell them it is likely going to take years.

The possibility is one could be talking into a void for months. You will hustle for every single subscriber. You will pour your own time, money, and emotional bandwidth into a project long before you see a single cent. That is the gritty reality of being a podcaster. It takes a monumental amount of work to draw in a large audience and even more to keep that attention and grow a show until it’s commercially viable.

This doesn’t mean people aren’t listening to shows. Around 3.2 million South Africans listened to podcasts in 2023 and that number is expected to grow to just shy of 5 million by next year. This explosive growth, coupled with how podcast hosts have been drawing large audiences and steering public debate (sometimes poorly), means that the sector has caught the attention of many including our lawmakers.

Driven by the Draft White Paper on Audio and Audiovisual Media Services and Online Safety of 2025, parliament has started talks on how the sector could be formalised. Proposals on the table include an online ombudsman to handle complaints, a tiered licensing system for podcasts and making bigger companies contribute to a National Content Fund.

Naturally, some of these ideas have been met with resistance. Creators, understandably, fear bureaucratic overreachand exhausting compliance paperwork that could strip the medium of the raw authenticity that keeps audiences tuned in. It’s unlikely that platforms will take joy in being asked to go through more red tape or contribute to local creator funds.

But perhaps what was missing from this conversation is a greater focus on how the rules we create need to support innovation and growth within the sector. We can and should raise our voices to say that new rules should enable creators, not just police them.

Untapped opportunity

In the last 11 years, unemployment among young people (aged 15-34) has risen to nearly 44%. But we haven’t just been sitting on the sidelines all along; many are tapping into the wealth of opportunities to build a business in the digital economy. An example of this is South Africa’s podcast market, which is estimated to be worth $158 million and$170 million in 2024. This represents a genuine frontier for job creation and empowerment. A successful show or podcast network won’t just benefit the host sitting behind the mic; it creates sustainable work for sound engineers, videographers, editors, and researchers.

New regulations for this space must first look to remove barriers and enable the business of podcasting. Starting a show isn’t very intensive, I know creators who script, produce, edit and publish their shows from their smartphones. But the skills required to turn a programme into a thriving business just aren’t the same. A well-crafted regulatory framework should offer clear guidelines that protect intellectual property and foster an environment where digital entrepreneurs can build viable businesses without the threat of ruinous paperwork.

Truly empowering these creators means regulators and commercial partners alike need to address the deepest flaw in the current ecosystem: the broken nature of platform economics.

Addressing the imbalance

Right now, digital platform ecosystems extract immense value from the communities that fuel those very ecosystems, leaving local creators more as participants without proportionate benefit. You create the content. Then you build the audience. You generate attention. And then the underlying economics of the system ensure that most of the value flows somewhere else, often out of the country entirely. From how adverts are bought to how the algorithms are governed, these economies only see a few mega-creators get the kind of deals that let them live off their craft.

Researchers on digital economies call this dynamic adverse digital incorporation. This happens when creators make deep investments in content for a digital platform, but don’t benefit proportionally from it. It describes the stark, painful distinction between simply being on a platform and getting your worth from it. This is the dynamic any regulatory evolution must seek to balance. The people and communities taking control of their stories through this medium must be placed firmly at the centre of the value chain, allowed to reap the fruits of their labour.

For the brands, marketing executives, and agency heads eyeing this space, your role needs to also evolve to support this shift. One can no longer just act as traditional advertisers, buying up pre-roll slots that feed the platforms while starving the creators.

Your goal and purpose in this space, should be to step in as genuine collaborators. Enabling the industry’s financial success looks like funding smaller creators who have your audience, sponsoring independent networks, and sharing the value created. This way brands build deeper, more resilient relationships with audiences than a traditional advertising purchasing ever could.

Call To Action For Business

The medium is changing fast. In a few years, the lines between audio and video will be so blurred that the word podcast will be obsolete. As business learns to navigate this transition, it is critical that they help ensure that the rules we write today lay a foundation that makes it easier for South Africans to tell their stories, build their businesses, and finally profit from their own creations.