International podcast network Paradiso Media has introduced Podcast to Screen, an online hub meant to streamline and facilitate rights acquisitions for audiovisual adaptations. Launching with more than 200 IPs on offer, the digital database offers a curated catalogue of audio titles with strong cross-media potential.
“We wanted to create a platform that would classify and centralize the best in global podcasts, offering a tool that allows you search by way of genre, theme, keyword and language,” explains Paradiso Media CEO Lorenzo Benedetti. “We’re looking to create a one-stop-shop for podcast IP.”
With advertising investment cresting the $2 billion mark in the U.S alone, with market saturation reaching more than 40% of U.S households, and with podcast adaptations like “Dirty John,” “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed” proving the viability of the earbud-to-screen pathway, Paris-based Paradiso Media has sought to capitalize on a new media growth sector that be a proving ground for stories that connect.
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Founder of web content agency Studio Bagel turned head of digital at Canal+, Paradiso CEO Lorenzo Benedetti now looks to welcome podcast creators into fecund ecosystem in which so many YouTube-revealed talents have flourished, all while brining the audio market closer in tune to a more traditional audiovisual model.
“Podcasting is a format,” Benedetti explains. “And so many tools from the TV industry can make sense for podcasts as well. While Paradiso Media handles management and advertising – creating a monetization network to make independent creators more visible and to help them thrive – we now must encourage partnerships in the audiovisual sector.”
The newly launched platform offers a curated selection of quality-controlled titles, presenting industry users with often hard-to-access info like audience satisfaction ratings, listening statistics, series bibles, rights availabilities and creator contact info – all in English, no matter the show’s provenance. Working with the European Commission, the studio will next develop AI tools for fast translation, making French, Italian, German and English language content to circulate far beyond linguistic and national boundaries.
Paradiso has already seen eleven podcasts optioned for various forms of adaptation, and boasts two films currently in production. Later this year will see the release of “In Flip-Flops at the base of the Himalayas,” a French-language dramedy about a mother who embarks on a globetrotting journey after her son is diagnosed with autism.
Produced by Paradiso and Cinefrance (“Falcon Lake”) and led by the creative team behind the César-winning comedy “Simply Black” (pictured above), the project began as a podcast before giving way to first a stage and now screen adaptation – in fact, the first feature film adaptation of French podcast.
