Battle of Voices 21 : India’s First Podcasting Competition held


New Delhi: The Battle of Voices 2021, a podcasting competition was organized recently by Bloggers Alliance, a national association of bloggers, storytellers and content creators. The niche, yet ever-growing medium of podcasting pulled Students, Working Professionals and Independent Creators alike. With a window of 28 days, the competition received more than 70 entries from Indians residing both within the subcontinent and based in USA and Canada. 

The virtual award ceremony was jointly organized by Voice of Achievers (a podcast production company currently producing podcasts to help the youth navigate career-related and professional challenges), Kids Chaupal (a mobile app helping children in growth and development), and Pokeify (an influencer marketing platform bridging the gap between influencers and brands).

Themes like History, Culture, Books, Parenting, Social Change etc. were explored by podcasters sharing deep insights, facts, and engaging dialogue. It was befitting therefore that the winning entries receive gift vouchers, books and internship opportunities. The highlight however was an intimate interaction winners had with eminent jury members, Antara Lahiri, Nikesh Murali and Sriram R, who are also accomplished storytellers.

Antara, a feature film editor for popular films like Shakuntala Devi and web series like Four More Shots Please and Bard of Blood, shared her storytelling experiences adding detailed perspectives. “For me this was a new format of listening to stories as opposed to watching them unfold in audio visual format and gave me a new perspective. “You need to hook your audience in the first few seconds since the attention spans are very short,” she emphasized when asked by curious winners about the art of formatting a story. “As a podcaster your thoughts must be lucid and the way you are narrating it must be coherent for audiences to be pulled into your world.”

Nikesh, an award-winning writer, storyteller and the brain and voice behind the internationally acclaimed and widely loved podcast, Indian Noir brought his nuanced perspectives about different formats that podcasters can explore while also focusing on how to market podcasts. “People are used to watching high quality TV shows that are so well produced, and they come with the same expectations on audio mediums. You need to understand the cliff-hanger moments if you’re dabbling in fiction, and explore different formats when dealing with non-fiction formats. In each case, you’re going on a lifelong journey on how you speak, and taking the audience with you. It’s equally important to present and share your content effectively such that you reach and connect with your audience. The focus should be on bringing loyal listeners as opposed to larger numbers.”

Sriram R, podcaster and marketing consultant with Tech Mahindra highlighted the merit in discipline. “Podcasting requires a certain amount of investment and commitment. The quality that I saw in the entries gave me hope.” He also highlighted the importance of snackable content, “We are part of the TikTok culture so we need to focus on short form content. Focusing on headlines is important too because they work as much for the podcast as they do for print or TV. Overall, I feel, podcasts are vibrant means of storytelling and there is lots of potential for us to grow.”

The morning was well spent amidst enthusiastic audio storytellers and experts. Yashika Begwani, a podcast producer and Chief Editor at Bloggers Alliance moderated the intimate session while Dr Amit Nagpal and Mr Devendra Jaiswal, Co-Founders of Bloggers Alliance added flavours from their storytelling and entrepreneurial experiences respectively. Winners left satiated with their podcast questions answered by experts and offer of support from Bloggers Alliance for their future creative pursuits as well. Bloggers Alliance, a non-profit society was established in 2019 to handhold bloggers on the road to success. More can be read about the organization here: https://bloggersalliance.org/

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