6 Jun
The commute is our prime time
Programming a catalogue around matatu and bus journeys, and the episode lengths that followed.
44 min33.9k
Founder Spotlight
East Africa
Zainab Diallo
Founder & CEO, Baobab Media
Zainab Diallo built Baobab Media around a simple observation: her market listens far more than it reads on screens. The company now records in seven languages and reaches listeners in eleven countries.
AudiobooksDistribution & accessMobile-first distribution
Featured company
Baobab Media
Baobab Media is an East African audiobook studio and distribution platform, publishing in Swahili, English, Amharic, Yoruba, Hausa, French and Somali.
View the Baobab Media company page- Founded
- 2018
- Team
- 60 people
- Headquarters
- Nairobi
- Website
- baobabmedia.co.ke
900k
monthly listeners
Gallery
Inside Baobab Media
On the record
Key challenges
- 01
Payments without cards
Rebuilding checkout around mobile money and airtime bundles, and what it did to conversion.
- 02
Data costs as the real competitor
Compression, offline downloads and telco partnerships that cut the cost of a listen by 70%.
- 03
Finding narrators in seven languages
A training programme that turned radio presenters and teachers into a professional narrator pool.
On demand
Past interviews
Next on air: Mon 7 Sep · 16:00 GMT
27 Feb
Licensing African rights for audio
Negotiating with estates and publishers who had never sold audio rights before.
40 min18.5k