We know Spotify is splashing up to $500m on podcast acquisitions this year, but the company’s wider strategy around spoken-word content is also coming together.
The Verge has done a good job of bringing together the various strands of Spotify’s plans, including recent comments from various executives. It includes the company’s determination to bring its music-discovery algorithms to work in the podcasts world, as well as working on a slate of exclusive podcasts with Gimlet Media, the production company it recently bought.
“It’ll be a mix of exclusive things that we make exclusively for Spotify, like we’re doing right now with Mogul, or things that are windowed or things that are a mix of the two,” said co-founder Alex Blumberg. Meanwhile, Spotify’s Courtney Holt is on record comparing Gimlet’s potential in podcasts to Pixar and Marvel in other sectors.
Also noteworthy: the importance of Spotify’s *other* podcast acquisition so far, creation app Anchor. Its CEO Michael Mignano tells The Verge that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he “wanted to give Anchor superpowers… the support and the infrastructure to be able to make better tools, to be able to offer better data, and, in general, make podcasting better”. The full piece is worth a read, while the full interview with Mignano (as a podcast, natch) is worth a listen too.
Related note: podcasts firm Voxnest has just claimed that Spotify is already bigger than Apple for podcasts in South America.
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