The market where Spotify doesn't matter: podcasting in Venezuela

If you log into Spotify in Venezuela, you won't find podcasts.

They exist globally, they exist on the platform, and they are central to how people consume audio in most markets. But inside Venezuela, they are effectively absent, hidden or simply unavailable to the average user. Over time, people have found ways around certain digital limitations, often relying on VPNs to access content that would otherwise be restricted, but when it comes to podcasts specifically, access remains inconsistent enough that it has never become a reliable behavior.

I spoke to Christopher Andrade, co-host of Escuela de Nada, Venezuela's biggest podcast. He mentioned something that stuck with me, he's had to teach members of his own family how to use a VPN just to access certain types of content. That kind of workaround isn't an edge case in Venezuela. It's part of everyday digital behavior.

So the market adapted. And in doing so, it created something very different from what we see in the rest of the world.

A video-first podcast ecosystem

In most countries, podcasting is still fundamentally an audio experience. Even when video is involved, it tends to be an extension of an audio-first product.

In Venezuela, that logic is reversed.

Podcasting is video-first, not audio-first, and that distinction changes everything.

Because Spotify is not a viable podcast platform in the country, and Apple Podcasts is limited by relatively low iPhone penetration, audiences have naturally consolidated around YouTube as the primary place to consume long-form content. This wasn't necessarily a preference, it was simply the most accessible option.

But the reasons go deeper than platform availability.

For years, the Venezuelan government could force every television channel to carry mandatory state broadcasts, “cadenas”, that could last four or five hours. Chávez did it. And Maduro continued to do it. During those hours, Venezuelans had no access to anything else on broadcast television. YouTube became the alternative. What started as an escape from state media became the default platform for an entire generation of digital consumers.

As Chris put it: "YouTube has been a refuge for Venezuelans."

There is another layer that makes the Venezuelan market even more unique. Most users are not subscribed to YouTube Premium, which means background playback, the ability to listen with the screen off, is not available to them. In practice, consuming a "podcast" often requires active screen time. You're not just listening while doing something else. You're watching, engaging, and dedicating attention in a way that is much closer to video consumption than traditional audio.

When podcasting replaces legacy media

Podcasting in Venezuela didn't just grow because of format innovation, it grew because there was space to fill.

As traditional media became less representative of independent voices, audiences moved toward digital alternatives. Podcasts became one of those alternatives, offering something that felt more direct, more personal, and more trustworthy.

The collapse of traditional media in Venezuela wasn't gradual. It was accelerated by political decisions over two decades, censorship, forced closures, and state takeovers of independent outlets. By the time podcasting emerged as a format, there was no legacy media infrastructure left to compete with. The audience was already digital, already accustomed to finding content outside official channels, and already trained to distrust what came through a television screen.

At the same time, creators had to navigate a complex environment. Speaking openly about certain political topics can still carry real risk. In the case of Escuela de Nada, the decision early on was to avoid political discussion altogether — focusing instead on humor, personal experiences, and cultural commentary. That decision, as Chris explained, was deliberate: "We made a promise among ourselves not to talk about politics in Venezuela — precisely because of the trauma of having lived basically our entire twenties immersed in it."

And yet, even without explicitly positioning themselves as political, these podcasts became something deeper. They became a space for connection.

A market that lives outside its borders

One of the most defining characteristics of Venezuelan podcasting is that it does not operate within the physical boundaries of Venezuela. It is, almost by default, a diaspora-driven ecosystem.

When I asked Chris how Escuela de Nada grew in its early days, his answer was surprisingly simple: they didn't grow in Venezuela first. They grew outside of it. The diaspora picked them up before the local market ever did.

Millions of Venezuelans now live abroad, in Mexico, Spain, the United States, Colombia, Chile, and across Central America, and that reality is reflected directly in how audiences are built and monetized. Over time, Escuela de Nada expanded beyond its initial Venezuelan audience and became one of the largest podcasts in Latin America, reaching listeners across multiple countries and communities.

But what makes this more than a growth story is what the show represents to those listeners.

"When one Venezuelan sees another Venezuelan, they know exactly what that person has been through. It doesn't matter your class, your race, your gender. You know what it means to meet someone who crossed a jungle looking for a better life. You know what it means to arrive in a country and have your university degree mean nothing. And you also know what humor you share, how you deal with adversity, how you resist."

That shared experience creates a kind of trust that is very difficult to manufacture. It's why, as Chris described, people sometimes stop him on the street and start crying before saying a single word. It's why someone once told him they named their child after one of his co-hosts.

These aren't just listeners. They're a community held together by a shared history that most of the world doesn't fully understand.

Monetization without platforms

In most podcast markets, monetization is closely tied to platforms. Programmatic ads, dynamic insertion, and platform-native monetization tools drive a large part of the ecosystem.

In Venezuela, that infrastructure is largely absent on the audio side. And as Chris noted, the problem isn't limited to Venezuela: It's a call from everyone making podcasts in Latin America — monetization is not active in most countries.

So monetization evolved elsewhere.

YouTube became the primary revenue engine, not just for distribution but for monetization through ads and views. But beyond that, creators have had to build businesses that don't depend on platforms at all.

Crowdfunding has become essential. Escuela de Nada is one of the most-subscribed Patreon accounts in Latin America. What makes this remarkable is that many listeners inside Venezuela can't easily make international payments due to financial sanctions and infrastructure limitations. And yet they find ways. Crypto, digital wallets, intermediaries, the support arrives through whatever channel works. As Chris described it: “The resilience story is remarkable — because in spite of all that, people have wanted so badly to contribute that they've found ways to make it work."

Live shows have become another central pillar. Escuela de Nada has toured Latin America, the United States, and Spain, building a touring business that reaches their audience wherever it exists.

And then there are the integrations. One of the most striking examples: Escuela de Nada became the main jersey sponsor of Caracas FC, Venezuela's most successful football club. The show's name was printed across the front of the shirt. "The lines were endless. To this day I watch the matches and I see people in the stands wearing the shirt that says Escuela de Nada." A podcast logo, on a football shirt, worn by thousands of fans in the stands. It's the kind of brand integration that most podcast networks in the US haven't figured out yet.

What unites all of these,crowdfunding, live shows, jersey sponsorships, is that they are tangible. They exist in the physical world. They don't depend on a platform deciding to activate monetization in a particular country. And they create the kind of visibility and loyalty that a pre-roll ad simply cannot.

The cost of speaking freely

There is a detail that doesn't appear in most coverage of Venezuelan podcasting, but it matters.

Escuela de Nada has never performed in Venezuela.

Not because the audience isn't there, Chris performed his solo stand-up show to 4,000 people in Caracas. But as a group, the show's hosts effectively cannot return. One co-host, Nacho, was charged under Venezuela's Ley del Odio, a law that criminalizes expression deemed offensive to government figures, after a joke in a stand-up set didn't sit well with the wrong people. He left in 2017 and has not been able to return. More recently, after the show interviewed María Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, another co-host's restaurant in Venezuela was shut down.

The threats are never direct enough to constitute a formal ban. But they don't need to be.

"The threat is never direct enough for them to officially say you can't enter Venezuela," Chris explained. "But I have no interest in testing it."

It's a detail that reframes everything. This is a show that has filled venues across three continents, built one of the largest Patreon audiences in Latin America, and put its name on the jersey of Venezuela's biggest football club, and its hosts cannot perform in their own country.

Why this matters for advertisers

Venezuela is a market that has been largely overlooked by international advertisers. There are millions of Venezuelans both inside and outside the country, yet advertising investment in this audience remains extremely limited compared to other Latin American markets.

That creates an unusual dynamic: low competition, relatively low cost, and an audience that is highly engaged, both inside Venezuela and across the diaspora.

The paid media infrastructure inside Venezuela is still underdeveloped. As Chris described it, there are executives who still don't fully understand how digital media consumption evolved in the country. But that gap is also an opportunity. The creators are already there. The audiences are already there. The trust is already there.

As Chris put it directly: "100%. The moment is now. You don't need to test the water with your foot first. Jump in."

What comes next

Venezuela may be one of the only markets where podcasting has grown without the infrastructure that defines the industry elsewhere. No audio platform presence. No programmatic monetization. An audience that is geographically distributed across a dozen countries.

And yet the ecosystem works.

Creators have built global audiences, diversified revenue streams, and strong cultural relevance, all by adapting to constraints rather than relying on platforms.

Chris's vision for the next five years is straightforward: if political conditions shift, the talent that left Venezuela, musicians, comedians, producers, media professionals, will come back with everything they learned abroad and reinvest it in a market that was once one of the largest in Latin America.

"The brain drain is going to reverse," he said. "And I feel there is an enormous amount of will and potential."

The opportunity isn't hypothetical. It's already being built — outside Venezuela's borders, by Venezuelans who never stopped making content for their people.

As Chris said: "Don't test the water with your foot. Jump in."