Podcasts produced by Gimlet Media will now be distributed to other streaming platforms outside Spotify. The network behind popular podcasts like "Science Vs" and "Reply All," Gimlet Media has been exclusively hosted on Spotify, but this year will mark the end of that exclusivity.
Spotify Targets to Pull in More Audience for Its Podcast Shows
As reported by Engadget, Spotify had been aggressive in spending millions of dollars to establish its own exclusive lineup of paywalled podcasts on the streaming platform. Since acquiring Gimlet Media in 2019, all of its podcasts have been played exclusively on Spotify, but the latter recently had a change of heart. The company recently announced that it is now open to licensing its podcasts to other platforms.
"Given our position as the leading global podcast platform, we are expanding our windowing strategies to increase the audiences and ad sales potential of our shows. In this case, we're pursuing broad distribution for some of our original podcasts like 'Science Vs.' This will be done on a case-by-case basis and over time," Spotify announced via Semafor.
According to Gizmodo, the popularity of Spotify's podcasts has waned over the past few years. The streaming platform still enjoys dominance in the music department, but its podcast and audiobook lineups are currently experiencing a hiccup. The move to license its podcasts to other platforms is seen as a way for Spotify to recover by selling ads at a higher price compared to when the podcasts are Spotify-exclusive.
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What to Expect From Spotify Podcasts After Dropping the Paywall
Engadget noted that removing the exclusivity of podcasts will increase the demand for ad placements. On the other hand, tying the podcasts to Spotify alone limits the listenership of these shows.
However, podcasts are still expected to be one of the main attractions of Spotify. Even after acquiring Gimlet Media in 2019 for $230 million, Spotify some of Gimlet's popular podcast shows to be distributed to other platforms. Dropping the paywall could be seen as Spotify's experiment if expanding its podcast audience will result in an increase in revenue.
It has not been confirmed what streaming platforms will get the license for Spotify's current podcast shows. The only thing certain for now is that if a listening platform like Apple Podcasts decided to host podcasts produced by Gimlet, Spotify has the power to sell ads at a higher price.
Unfortunately for Spotify subscribers, it is not only the streaming platform's podcast lineup that has a murky future. According to The Verge, the platform is speculated to apply some major changes in its audiobook lineup, or possibly drop it altogether. With Nir Zicherman, the executive in charge of the audiobook feature, exiting the company, it introduced more uncertainty on the audiobook's existence in Spotify.
Lastly, Spotify also announced that it will no longer support Spotify Live, which served as the platform's live radio feature.
