As the International Women's Podcasting Festival takes shape in October, founder Imrielle Morgan spoke to PodcastingToday about the festival and her company, Content is Queen.
Imriel first got into podcasts in late 2014 after listening to Serial, the award-winning podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig. The show is known for telling one true story per series, and Imriel says it ignited his interest in true crime documentaries.
Imriel, a behavioral scientist, said that before listening to the show he had no interest in audio, and had never even listened to the radio.
“When Serial started in 2014, I listened to it and thought, this is cool and interesting,” she says. “I thought this was an incredible medium. I didn't know audio could be so moving and intimate and allow me to connect with stories in the way that I connected with them.”
She was looking for ways to connect with people in her community here in the UK (predominantly Black British) and she found it to be a great way to connect with people because she felt like she was under-represented in the news and mainstream media.
Though initially skeptical about creating a podcast network, Imriel quickly realized it was a medium with the potential to make a difference.
This led to the founding of the ShoutOut Network, a platform focused on enabling under-the-radar talent to share their interests and expertise. The network won one of the first UK Podcast Awards, garnered a lot of media attention and marked the beginning of audio becoming a bigger part of Imriel's life.
“This is a medium that can change the world. I got to learn about other people and I wanted to do the same for the Black British community here,” she says. “How can we make a difference, or at least give people a different lens through which to look at us?”
“So we did shows about politics, history and literature and publishers said, 'I didn't know these people read books'!! This was 10 years ago and there were certainly people who had a very limited view of black Britishness and black British identity.”
The success of the ShoutOut Network led to the launch of the UK Women's Podcasting Festival in 2018, initially focused on supporting UK women in podcasting. As a result, the industry has rallied around the event to celebrate the contributions of women to podcasting, with other organisations drawing on the festival's speaker list to diversify their own events.
The subtitle of the first festival was “Content is Queen,” and Imriel says this has stuck, and the company now represents everything she hopes it will: inclusive, inclusive, and supporting creators from all backgrounds.
Content is Queen is committed to sound and high quality, building studios in Somerset House on the Strand and Peckham to provide an affordable service to creators.
Unfortunately, the studio opened just as the pandemic hit in 2020, so growth was slow and we weren't able to host festivals. Luckily, Audible partnered with us and covered the costs of building and maintaining the studio initially.
“Fast forward to 2022, the festival happened, and the pandemic allowed us to have a festival that was international in many ways and open to women from all over the world,” Imriel reflects. “That meant we could start thinking about how we could support creators in large numbers.”
“We're now not just focused on our physical locations, but also on providing editorial support for creators and community resources to help them grow their shows and elevate their productions.”
In addition to the festival, there are also mini-events held every month to educate people about podcasting and the audio industry as a whole.
It's all come full circle for the festival, as Sarah Koenig, the podcast host who inspired Imriel to get into audio, will be this year's headline guest.
Sarah's “Serial” podcast will celebrate its 10th anniversary in October, and Imriel says many of the people he meets across the industry widely credit “Serial” with helping make podcasts a popular medium.
“It's been almost 10 years, and what gets overlooked a little bit is that it was a woman who did it,” Imriel says. “And she did such an incredible job. Serial has 420 million listeners. It's a huge show led by a woman.”
That's why they're so happy to have Sarah at the festival, to celebrate her achievements and thank her for making it and opening the doors that she has.
“This year's festival celebrates Sarah's contributions to podcasting, which is just the best thing for us,” Imriel added.
The International Women's Podcast Festival runs from October 3rd to 4th. For more information about the festival, including an evening with Sarah Koenig at the South Bank Centre, check out the Content is Queen website.
