Madrid, January 11 – The Spanish capital is witnessing a remarkable shift in its media landscape, with the number of podcast recording studios now surpassing that of cinemas. This burgeoning industry, characterized by a diverse range of services and pricing models, is attracting a wide array of clients, from casual content creators to established professionals seeking to enhance their marketing strategies.
Madrid’s Podcast Industry: A Rapid Expansion
As of today, Madrid boasts nearly 50 podcast recording spaces, significantly outnumbering the 29 operational cinemas in the capital. These spaces are varied, including adapted apartments, vacant offices, co-working facilities, and even studios advertised on platforms like Wallapop. This dispersed yet rapidly expanding market makes it easier to rent a microphone than to find a movie screen.
Economic Dynamics of the Podcast Market
The business model is straightforward: spaces are rented by the hour, often including cameras, sound equipment, and lighting. In Madrid, recording a 45-minute to one-hour episode can cost as little as 50 euros for raw material. However, prices can escalate to 500 or 600 euros for additional services such as multi-camera production, editing, adaptation to vertical formats, and platform publication. The trend indicates a growing demand for podcasts as a near-finished product.
Diverse Offerings: From Low-Cost to Premium Services
The market is segmented, catering to different needs and budgets. Low-cost studios operate outside traditional circuits, offering fully equipped spaces for around 50 euros an hour. As one such studio explained, “The idea is to remove entry barriers: the client arrives, records, and leaves.” These studios facilitate longer sessions and recordings with multiple guests, with additional costs for editing and social media clips.
At the other end of the spectrum are production companies that integrate podcasts into comprehensive marketing strategies. Here, the cost per episode starts at 500 euros and can reach up to 2,000 euros per month for continuous packages. Karlina Fernández, head of Karlina Producciones, notes that her clients are primarily seeking “authority, not a massive audience.” This includes psychologists, psychiatrists, aesthetic doctors, and coaches who use podcasts as a professional positioning tool to demonstrate expertise, build trust, and retain a dedicated audience.
Podcasts as a Marketing Tool
For those investing 500 or 600 euros per episode, the podcast itself is not the primary monetization goal. Instead, it serves as a stable showcase within a broader commercial strategy, helping to sell consultations, treatments, courses, training, or specialized services. The return on investment is measured in client acquisition rather than download numbers. For premium studio users, the podcast is often a marketing budget item rather than an autonomous business. “They don’t live off the podcast; they live off what the podcast helps them sell,” stated a source from an advertising agency, highlighting the focus on notoriety, expert image building, and occupying a consistent space where content consumption is prolonged.
Statistical Overview of the Spanish Podcast Scene
The numbers underscore this competitive landscape. Spain is estimated to host around 500,000 podcasts, with approximately a quarter produced in the Community of Madrid. Over the past two years alone, more than 140,000 new Spanish-language programs have been launched. Most podcasts are released weekly, with durations typically ranging from 30 minutes to two hours. The typical creator is an adult male who balances podcasting with another professional activity.
Audience engagement is robust, with six out of ten Spanish internet users listening to digital audio, and over half regularly consuming podcasts. The average listener is around 40 years old, listens to about four episodes per week, and primarily uses Spotify, YouTube, and iVoox, mostly via mobile devices. While the format is generally free for the public, it is sustained by an industry that bills by the hour.
This creates a fragmented yet dense ecosystem where improvised recordings, semi-professional passion projects, and highly professionalized productions coexist. Madrid, with its growing number of podcast studios, has become a central hub for an industry where, unlike cinema, profitability is not directly tied to audience volume but to the strategic value of sustained conversation.
Source: elmundo.es
