Evolving Trends in Radio Broadcasting in South Africa: The Case of Podcast and Chill with MacG

Since the first radio broadcast in South Africa in 1923, much has been written about the medium. Most of the scholarly attention has been devoted to radio programming, audience participation, and language issues on radio and the radio interface with social media. However, the development of podcasts is missing in the discourse. Podcasting as a phenomenon of the internet is a relatively new trend. The first documented podcast can be traced to 2004. In South Africa, the phenomenon gained traction after the phenomenal success of podcasts such as Podcast and Chill with MacG. Given this prodigious success, there is a need for scholarly attention on this new form of radio and its contribution to the radio landscape in South Africa. This chapter, therefore, uses the thriving Podcast and Chill with MacG as an entry point to explore trends and patterns of podcast usage in South Africa. It argues that the success of this podcast is attributable to several factors, which mainly include the type of content, the personality of the host, and the ability to share the content on platforms such as YouTube and Twitter, which enable users to engage with that content effectively. Ultimately, the chapter draws on users’ comments to evaluate how they feel about the podcast series and uses content analysis of the episodes to delineate thematic areas that characterise the content of this popular podcast series. The chapter emanates from a broader study that looks at digital humanities and the affordances of the 4IR technologies.