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Looking to stay ahead and make the most of every opportunity this year? Our annual calendar is your go-to guide for everything happening in our ecosystem, from hands-on workshops and creative labs to insightful webinars, conferences, and special community events.
Align your schedule and stay connected with everything happening at APVA.
For APVA Partners and Members: You can add your events to our calendar for free! This is a fantastic way to boost your event’s visibility and reach a wider audience.
If you’re one of our partners or members, just click the link below to submit your event for review and approval.
Not a partner or member yet? No problem! You can still get your event featured on our channels and tap into our network. Just ask us for a rate guide to get started.
The Association of African Podcasters and Voice Artists (APVA) invites you to share your opportunities, events, and updates shaping Africa’s audio-creative industry.
Whether you’re connected to podcasting, spoken word, voiceover, or the broader audio space, we want to hear from you!
Submit your work today!
Visit the link below for more insight.
Podcasting is an exciting way to share your voice and connect with an audience, but many aspiring podcasters don’t realise the hidden challenges that come with it.
Growing a podcast from tricky analytics to struggling with consistency takes more than just hitting “record”.
In this article, you’ll find essential insights into the hidden challenges of starting a podcast and how to navigate them successfully. Are you ready to leap?
Click on the link below for more insight.
Get the latest updates about the sector in our weekly news bulletin podcast.
Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and find out about upcoming conferences, workshops, webinars, and masterclasses to enhance your skills and network. Click here to listen to the latest episode.
K24 Digital examines the shift from traditional radio toward on-demand audio in Kenya, particularly among smartphone users, driven by convenience, smartphone access, more affordable internet bundles, and the rise of streaming platforms.
The piece is notable for framing podcasting as actively reshaping an established African broadcasting market, rather than simply creating a new media category, a useful signal for our Kenyan and East African podcasting community.
For more information, read the full article at the link below.
In this interview, Tony Onwuchekwa speaks with Jon Savage of the Africa Podcast Network about the central question facing African podcasting: whether creators can build sustainable businesses rather than produce shows.
The conversation covers sustainability, scaling, understanding African audiences, commercialisation, the role of podcast networks, and thinking beyond episode publishing. Pairs well with Communiqué's economics-of-podcasting analysis for a fuller picture of what sustainability actually requires.
Visit the link below to read more.
SoFyne Network opened in Sandton on 11 August 2026, positioning itself as South Africa's first elevated, corporate-ready podcast network.
Think four curated studios, premium furniture, considered art, finishes built to hold up on camera, and a done-for-you corporate service that brings the studio, the strategy and an audience network to brands in one package.
A network launching on the belief that "African stories deserve world-class stages" is a sign that our production and monetisation infrastructure is growing up.
Visit the link below to read more.
MyJoyOnline reports that Ghanaian broadcaster and voice-over artist Jay Foley is encouraging Ghanaian voice artists to digitise their voices for the emerging AI voice economy.
His reasoning is notably about representation: AI systems currently struggle to accurately handle many Ghanaian names, expressions and languages, and Foley argues Ghanaian voice artists need to actively participate so their languages are properly represented, rather than being left out or mishandled by AI trained without them.
This opens a wider, unresolved conversation directly relevant to our voice talent: African voices, AI training, ownership, consent and compensation.
Visit the link below to read more!
Broadcast Media Africa convened a webinar this month on production and distribution in the age of AI, and what came out of it wasn’t a forecast. It was people describing what actually happened when they tried.
Sammy Wanyoike of Ubongo put it as “the creative process has to start from our minds.” Charles Mawungwa of Realnet Multimedia was blunter “we don’t want AI to be creative on our behalf, or to take our creativity.”
Wanyoike described an AI dubbing pilot, moving content into another language. The technology could support the process. But human intervention remained necessary for delivery, tone and pitch. On a separate World Cup song project, the voice was still recorded in a studio, with significant human editing on top.
Visit the link below to read more.
From mid-September, Spotify will begin showing an “AI Persona” badge on artist profiles where the public identity appears to be AI-generated rather than a real person.
It’ll appear on the profile banner and About section, in Search, and on track rows in playlists. Artists could start self-disclosing from 11 August, and Spotify says it will also review and badge profiles itself, with notification and a right of appeal.
A disclosure label on its own is a small icon people scroll past. What changes behaviour is consequence. Recommendations are where most discovery happens, so cutting synthetic identities out of that surface removes most of the commercial incentive to pass a machine off as a person.
Read more below!
Episode: Influencer Marketing, Authenticity and AI For Marketers and Creators
In this episode of The Lead Creative, host Mongezi Mtati is joined by Fluence Africa Founder and CEO Jolene Roelofse, alongside content creator and media personality Sipho Alphi Mkhwanazi, for a conversation on what makes influencer marketing work beyond reach and visibility.
With GWI reporting that only 29% of consumers trust influencer recommendations, the conversation looks at how brands can build stronger connections with audiences and turn influencer partnerships into meaningful results.
Click on the link below to listen to the full episode.
Here are more articles you can check out for further developments and insights:
Call for Submissions: Join The Creators’ Rolodex! Click here
What Do Podcasters Need To Know About SEO For Podcast Growth? Listen here
The Economics of African Podcasting: From Studio Conversations to Touring Media Business. Click here
Podcasting is Becoming Internet Television: Here’s What That Means For Creators. Click here
Voices Launches Voices for Agencies, Extending Branded AI Voice to Creative Agencies. Click here
GVAC Voice Bank: A Dedicated Directory of Professional African Voice Talent. Click here
South Africa’s Media Industry Faces a Reckoning; What It Means for African Audio. Click here
Don't keep the good stuff to yourself—share this newsletter edition with friends and spread the inspiration!
With Love,
APVA Editor.
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