Hollywood's cut price development pipeline: podcasts.

Sonoro Media builds a podcast IP factory in Mexico and LA.

If you were to build a modern day media company from scratch, what would it look like? 

Josh Weinstein and Camila Victoriano, the co-founders of Sonoro Media, started out with that question. The company is developing podcasts into shows for Netflix, Amazon, NBC and Paramount. Their mission was to develop IP at a fraction of the cost of traditional TV and film development, grow an audience overseas, and then target the proven hits at the Latino youth market. Since launching in 2020, they’ve turned Sonoro into the fourth largest global podcast platform, according to Podtrac.

“Being able to test ideas allows us to offer buyers down the line some sort of assurance that they are avoiding the risk that perhaps they think comes along with taking a bet on a creator or story that they have not heard or seen before,” said Camila Victoriano, the company’s chief content officer on this week’s podcast. Victoriano joined from the LA Times.

Backed by early stage venture capital firm Lerer, Hippeau and Hollywood talent agency UTA, Sonoro is now working with talent including Mario Lopez, Eric Winter and former NBCUniversal Entertainment Chair Paul Telegdy to develop a project about the Bermuda Triangle of Mexico known as the “Zone of Silence.”

Weinstein shares on the podcast that huge stars for Latin audiences globally might be barely recognizable names to some, even though they outstrip even Taylor Swift. “The most viewed artist on YouTube globally last year was Peso Pluma, someone that a lot of people don’t know is a Mexican artist.”

With America experiencing an influx of youngsters from Venezuela and Central America, alongside Mexico, Sonoro has been building an avid audience for telenovela-style podcasts like “Princess of South Beach,” featuring, “Suits” actress Gina Torres and Rachel Zegler (West Side Story’s Maria) to hard hitting documentaries like “Humo,” about murders in El Salvador.

Weinstein, once a manager of corporate synergy at Disney, notes that the ecosystem of content production is flattening enabling talent a much easier path to discovery. Now you don’t have to find an agent and search for a script, it’s as simple as developing a podcast, he said.

“YouTube and TikTok will deliver more content in the next five minutes than the studios just delivered in a year,” said Weinstein. “If we were simply television producers begging for a green light from Apple TV which we’ll happily do, that’s part of our business, we would be overly reliant on one content vertical or one business model. To succeed in Hollywood today, to succeed in media today, is to build a diversified platform.” 

Subscribe to hear more about their business plan along with their favorite podcasts on The Media Mix where they talk about their success in getting 15 executives from McDonalds to hear their pitches.

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Thanks to my executive producer Jamie Maglietta and to all at production partner SituationRoom Studios.

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