Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Tablo of Epik High performs at Coachella.
- Dive Studios is a new podcast network focused on Asian and Asian-American content that launched in August with K-Pop star Eric Nam as its flagship host.
- The network is now also home to shows hosted by Tablo of Epik High and Jamie Park.
- Dive's listeners are often new to podcasts, so Dive drives traffic to its podcasts through social media and has been careful about introducing ads into podcasts.
- Click here for more BI Prime articles.
When Los Angeles-based Dive Studios launched in August, a podcast network for K-Pop and other Asian and Asian-American content, it had to figure out how to reach people whose weren't big podcast listeners.
The network has three shows hosted by K-Pop stars Eric Nam, Tablo of Epik High, and Jamie Park. Nam discusses K-Pop music; Tablo tells personal stories and with dark humor; and Park offers advice to listeners in tough situations.
The network is tiny in podcast terms, with only around 350,000 monthly downloads, said Brian Nam, who co-founded Dive with his brother Eddie Nam.
Large podcast networks like iHeartMedia and NPR average about 160 million downloads per month for all of their active shows, and other top publishers like WNYC Studios and NBC News accumulate about 35 million downloads a month, according to Podtrac, a service that ranks podcast publishers.
And more than 50% of Dive's listeners, most of whom are 18 to 24, have never heard a podcast before, Nam said. But they're active on social media, so the brothers have focused on building an audience through social engagement.
"There's a stigma around podcasts that they tend to be more educational or news-driven, which our audience sees as being on the boring side," Nam told Business Insider. "We show them podcasts can be very fun or entertaining."
Dive uses social media to attract new listeners
To reach its young audience, Dive Studios is active on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
"The Tablo Podcast" has over 43,000 followers on Instagram, and "K-Pop Daebak w/Eric Nam" has an additional 30,000. The Dive YouTube channel has more than 71,000 subscribers, which the network capitalizes on by promoting its podcasts with preview video clips.
Dive also uses Twitter to disseminate videos and is in the early stages of using TikTok to promote its podcasts.
"We see a lot more opportunity to cut this content up and distribute it across these different platforms," Nam said. "We think of each platform as its own living, breathing thing."
Dive is also trying to build a community on chat forum Discord where listeners can talk about Dive shows. It has over 5,500 members on the forum, with about 300 to 500 online and interacting at any given time, Nam said. The hosts use the forum to chat with users, promote new shows, and recruit hosts.
"There's no better platform to communicate with your listeners than a chatroom-style forum," Nam said.
Dive tried to avoid overwhelming listeners with ads
To avoid turning off listeners, many of whom are new to podcasts, Dive waited five months to take ads, instead making money through branded podcast deals and merchandise sales.
Hosts would joke about the lack of ads but also told fans why advertising would eventually become necessary to generate revenue. By the time Dive started slowly introducing ads - host reads only, and two per episode - listeners were actually excited about it, Nam said.
Most of the listeners are from North America, but the network has opened an office in Korea and hopes to expand its slate to include podcasts in Korean and stories outside of K-Pop.
"We do see a need for a platform with Asian-American voices," Nam said.
