Exclusive Interview with Yang Yi: Targeting "The Daily", "Initium Reports" Aims to Fill the Gap in the Chinese Podcast Market
English Version
On the day of the interview with Yang Yi, it happened to be May 26th, and PodFest China（China's first podcast-themed conference） 2024 was taking place in Shanghai. Yang Yi is the co-founder of PodFest China, and you could always see him both on and off the stage during the past five PodFest China events. However, that day he was in Germany, sitting across from me through a screen, in his new role as the "Director of Initium Audio."
A few months ago, I knew Yang Yi was making podcasts for Initium Media（a Singapore-based Chinese digital media outlet）, but when he announced this title, I was genuinely surprised. My former boss had joined a Chinese media outlet I was very familiar with…
On second thought, it made perfect sense. As the co-founder of JustPod（China's leading podcast and digital audio company）, he has extensive content production and entrepreneurial experience. Despite the growing maturity of his company's branded podcast business, his true passion has always been narrative news podcasts. Initium Media, being an independent news outlet for global Chinese readers, provides him the space to produce high-quality news content without the constraints of censorship.
For this interview, I expected to focus on the production details of the news podcast "Initium Reports（端闻）," but Yang Yi exceeded my expectations. He not only described in detail the source of topics, the scriptwriting process, and the post-production workflow but also explained why Initium Media decided to produce audio news content, the program's positioning, and the rationale behind naming it "Initium Reports." Moreover, he discussed more abstract topics, such as why Chinese scripts tend to sound like they are being read, while English podcasts sound natural.
Midway through the interview, when discussing team dynamics, Yang Yi suddenly remarked, "Do you think I've changed in the past five years? Five years ago, I was pushing everyone to work. After founding a company, I've grown."
Indeed, I noticed a change in Yang Yi's attitude and work style.
Five years ago, shortly after JustPod was founded, I was the first full-time employee. Yang Yi often pushed me to complete tasks according to his ideas, with a fast-paced and varied workload. Now, in a similar position, he leads a new department in an independent media outlet, with a budget only sufficient to hire one full-time producer. He must find ways to achieve results with limited resources to secure more investment from the company.
To maintain a bi-weekly update schedule, he and the production team worked overtime but recognized this was unsustainable. He is currently looking for new producers and editors to reduce everyone's workload. He collaborates gently with editors and journalists, transforming written reports into suitable audio programs without forcefully changing their styles.
Yang Yi has a clear vision for the future of Initium Media's audio news products. He wants to make "Initium Reports" truly daily and experiment with other types of audio products. He is no longer in a hurry, saying, "We are just getting started, the team is still learning and adapting, and we can take our time. Listeners' acceptance of narrative news podcasts is relatively slow. We need to give everyone some time."
Detailed interview content with Yang Yi follows, including input from producer Chen Liya.