For some, obstacles are mountains too steep and high to climb. To others, like Camila Victoriano, obstacles can be transformed into opportunities through effort, intelligence, and insight. Like the legendary alchemist who turned lead into gold, Camila Victoriano has discovered riches in Sonoro, a global entertainment company focused on creating premium, culturally relevant content that starts in audio and comes alive in TV, film and beyond.
Sonoro collaborates with leading and emerging Latinx storytellers – writers, producers, and directors – from over a dozen countries to develop original franchises in English, Spanish, and Spanglish.
Along the way to being a co-founder of Sonoro and an innovator in podcasting, Camila Victoriano has overcome challenges such as being a woman in podcasting where only 29 percent of podcasts are run by women; being Latino in a still white male dominated culture, and proving that a liberal arts major can develop and operate a successful business.
Victoriano’s latest podcast is called Love and Noraebang, the first romcom, K-drama, telenovela podcast series. An original production from her company, Sonoro, in partnership with Mash-Up Americans. Love And Noraebang releases on July 19.
With the help of Lauren Passell, Tink Media founder and curator of the excellent Podcast The Newsletter, I was able to interview
Camila Victoriano.
Q. Let’s start with your newest podcast, Love and Noraebang. I’ve listened to the first episode and loved it. What I find so refreshing is the blending of genres. RomCom, audio fiction, Telenova. How did the concept for the podcast come
together?
A. At Sonoro, we always knew we wanted to reinvent the telenovela for audio because it is such an important throughline for many Latin cultures in the US and around the world.
When we met with the team at The Mash-Up Americans, we took that a step further and realized we could bring another major format into the mix – the K-drama. And to be honest, the idea came together as simply as that. We all felt that the blending of these
formats into a modern day rom-com made so much sense, yet it hadn’t been done before.
Q. As a follow-up, are you trying to disrupt stereotypes by mixing genres and ethnic backgrounds?
A. Definitely. We had noticed a trend – when characters from two different backgrounds fell in love in other films, their cultures and families clash. That tends to become the big hurdle their relationship has to face. We wanted to flip the script on that – in Love And Noraebang, the fact that Jaesun is Korean and Ana is Mexican-American actually adds to their relationship and brings them that much more joy. Their cultures aren’t a roadblock.
That was important to us.
Q. How did your partnership develop with Mash-Up Americans and its co-founders, Amy Choi and Rebecca Lehrer?
A. When we met, we realized immediately that our missions really worked well together. The three of us value the importance of diverse cultures and perspectives in audio storytelling and wanted to create a show that brought us and our audiences joy and delight. Once we got to brainstorming, the rom-com genre felt like the perfect space for our two teams to come together and create something uplifting and amazing.
Q. You graduated from Harvard in English Literature? Some people today are skeptical of liberal arts degrees. How did your literature degree help you in your career and life?
A. I’m thrilled you asked this question for all my English majors out there. As a teenager that was definitely on the outside of the cool crowd, literature helped me feel seen and, in turn, see the world around me through different perspectives. I found real joy and
community in books and stories. And, in terms of my career, my passion for literature always made sure I stayed in a creative field and with people that had the same love for storytelling.
Q. What did you learn in business development at the Los Angeles Times?
A. I was a founding member of LA Times Studios, which was a mini start up within the LA Times that served as the audio division of the company. I worked with the newsroom to develop and launch shows like Dirty John and Chasing Cosby. If literature gave me my
passion, the LA Times is definitely where I first got to implement more practical skills like building business models and partnerships, developing content strategy, and
marketing shows.
Q. For some, a Latino background implies an identical or similar background. What have you assimilated from your Peruvian and Chilean background?
A. Peru and Chile are definitely an unexpected mix – but from both, and from my upbringing in Miami, I’ve gotten my ambition, my sense of humor and also the joy of big gatherings with people you love. That’s one of my most recurring memories growing up
– having lots of family members in our backyard, grilling choripán and drinking wine, laughing and telling stories. Laughter, food, friends and family – you can’t really go wrong with that.
Q. Even though podcasting is changing, it has been, for its brief history, white male-dominated. How difficult was it for you to start Sonoro and break through some of those barriers?
A. Sonoro’s goal has always been to empower Latinx creators, in audio and beyond, because of the very fact that the industry to date has not been representative of its consumers. We know that the audience is out there and only growing every year, but there still aren’t nearly as many shows as there should be in which Latinos are present both behind and in front of the mic. We’re excited to move the needle in a serious way with the content we’re producing – whether it’s scripted series, nonfiction documentaries, or chat shows.
Q. How did you assess the need for a LatinX-centric podcast network?
A. We understood that there was a large gap in the market between the Latinx community around the world (which is growing steadily – we are becoming a "majority minority" here in the US) and how rarely we see ourselves (or hear ourselves) in the content we consume. For me it was obvious that there needed to be a company exclusively focused on empowering Latinx creators to tell stories across genres. That way the diversity of the community would be reflected in the characters of our shows, and our content could be enjoyed by listeners all over the world.
Q. What obstacles did you face when developing the network?
A. We started building our network in Mexico and Latin America, so the biggest challenge was that we had to educate some of our early partners about podcasting, both creatively and as a business. But we were lucky to be working with some really amazing creators
from the very beginning. The global podcasting industry is only getting bigger and better, and I’m really proud of what we’ve built in the last two and a half years, both in LATAM and in the US.
Q. What was the origin story of The Princess of South Beach, one of your most popular and well-known podcasts?
A. When we heard the pitch for Princess of South Beach we knew right away that this story was going to be our first big project in the telenovela genre. It had all the elements of a great telenovela – twins separated at birth, scandalous affairs, evil adoptive mothers – all
while offering so many delightful modern elements that challenged typical tropes, like the stereotypical “maid” character. Then, when we partnered with iHeart’s My Cultura network and cast our incredible leads Rachel Zegler and Sheryl Rubio, the world felt
complete, and we’re so thrilled with how well it did and how passionate of a fanbase the show developed online.
Q. How about the development of Crónicas Obscuras, which has genre-bending qualities?
A. Crónicas Obscuras was the first original scripted franchise that we launched in Mexico. Similarly to the telenovela, horror is a genre that we already knew Latinos love around the world. Yet many horror stories are inspired by European legends and feature no
Latinx characters.
For Crónicas, we wanted to bring to life Latin American legends and set the Los Nahuales in season 1, and launched season 2 with Ana de la Reguera, in which we told the story of vampires infiltrating a women’s prison. We have a few more stories up our sleeve for that franchise that we’re excited to launch soon.
Q. You must be thrilled about the Paramount Plus streaming network greenlighting your podcast Toxicomanía as a film? How did that happen? What was the sequence of events?
A. So thrilled. We partnered with Luis Gerardo Méndez on Toxicomanía – he starred on and Executive Produced the podcast with us, which is based on an incredible true story about
a Mexican doctor in the 1940s. When we launched the show last year, it became a massive success. The show was the #1 podcast in Mexico and across Latin America, as well as hitting #2 in the fiction charts in the US (even though it was only in Spanish).
That success caught some attention in the TV/film space, and Paramount+ ended up being the perfect home for it.
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Love And Noraebang podcast launches on July 19.
Take a listen here. Your ears will thank you.
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