Spotlight On: The Battle In Podcasting 🎙

Joe Rogan exclusive licensing deal with Spotify has been the major talk of the last week.

Spotify has gone deep into podcasting:

Why? The length of time listening to podcast is huge, if you have ever met a podcast fan they will always have one they have binged, podcasts they listen to religiously and have a real affinity to the podcast hosts. The other critical reason why Spotify has a long term but aggressive M&A strategy is the amount of advertising that is associated with podcasts and the opportunity to own the ecosystem.

Spotify’s ‘podcasting’ acquisitions include:

• The Ringer — extremely popular digital media network company (broader sites, podcasts) that covers sports, pop culture, tech,
• Paracast — high quality scripted podcast company
• Anchor — recording, editing app that offers an ad platform for podcasts
• Gimlet — high profile well known high production house
• Mediachain — identity engine that connects information to podcasts and host
• Loudr — tools that enables to pay creators of the music identified
• Soundtrap — studio that enables users to record, edit and collaborate and share their recording

As you can see that is a clear sign of their intent and how deep they have wanted to go into podcasting. I highly recommend Gimlet’s podcast series offering behind the scenes of the deal and their reactions to the acquisition process.

The Listening Marketplace

Apple podcasts are still most popular (being featured in Apple can make podcasts in one move), with Spotify increasing in popularity and now second. My insight here. Apple just doesn’t see a viable business model that works for them in podcasting despite ‘owning the ear right now’ and only really refer to podcasts in a broader category as an “audio service”.

Spotify flex

Spotify is most likely to going to be the Netflix for Podcasts and Podcasters, how? personalised recommendations + serving great and relevant content to listeners.

Spotify consolidating the space and ensuring they offer the full end to end services (zoom out: from production to upload to serving ads is a pure power play) and showing dominance in an area others haven’t will send fear in some of their major competitors and strike fear in many of their indirect competitors.

Huge Talent Shift

The world’s largest podcaster Joe Rogan has gone exclusive with Spotify, Joe Rogan had one 1billion downloads last year (podcasting tracking and data is a nightmare), the exclusive price is a reported $100m licencing deal. Joe Rogan was not even available on Spotify until the announcement.

Joe Rogan Flywheel?

Spotify will gain a % of Rogan’s fans which will drive user sign-ups — remember Spotify offers free tiers however now serving more ads throughout Rogan long-form pod and his company to serve inserted ads.

Zooming Out

Daily news podcasts have spiked in popularity and likely to continue, an issue with news is no one wants to buy ads against bad news.
In recent Culture > Perks Must Reads, I covered how Spotify is going into video and was looking at video talent (YouTubers). Obtaining the most watched, most downloaded podcast is a huge win for Spotify, huge loss for YouTube and ultimately the fanbase there.

This will hurt YouTube, especially taking their best known live video podcaster but his back catalogue away from them. The viewing numbers and time taken away from YouTube will be something discussed at the Google table not just the YouTube table.

Premier Ecosystem

The startup that struggled with this model Luminary podcast is burning through their investment rounds, Spotify might have just moved towards owning the top tier podcast ecosystem and Luminary and other platforms that wanted to operate and own the premium market might have just been blown out of the water.

One platform that we should be reminded off is Audible, Amazon owned Audible is really a closed ecosystem but has had numerous exclusive podcasts within its app. Audible is the clear leader in the audiobook space, would it make another step towards quality podcasts? Or think about a similar move to acquire a talented podcast house or podcast creator?

The ecosystem of audio is huge:

Think about mental capacity, the concentration required to consume the input (requirement for cognitive ram):

• Audio books — 90% ram needed
• Podcasts — 60–70% ram required
• Voice notes — 50% ram required
• Radio — 40% ram required
• Music — 30% ram required

Podcast Troubles Can’t Be Ignored

Another hugely popular podcast ‘Call her daddy’ has had huge drama and proving how Podcasters are making and breaking pods and building audio brands via merch and live events.

Currently there is a sense by many that publishers and podcast networks potentially taking the talent (hosts) for granted and not paying the right salaries. Call her daddy is a high profile podcast example that has rung true on TV and radio in years gone by.

The Battles Bubbling…There will be a continued battle for Publishers vs presenter(s) brand (presenters aren’t your normal influencer) — podcasters are the new must have talent with audiences they influence.

Predicted Podcasting Growth

Podcasting will have another popularity and sales spike, especially with the hope of selling exclusivity and going in as a production house (think Gimblet to Spotify) or talent moving away from networks.

There has been a huge spike in podcasts being made in lockdown especially those that were live broadcast and repurposed as podcasts. Podcasts don’t have to be timely, just great content or great conversation.

Whats Next For Podcasting?

Apple will likely go for exclusive content. They have been ramping up their efforts for Appletv+ shows and have been looking to create audio versions of Apple News+ Stories. Something tells me that Apple won’t go into advertising but will go into exclusive content and highly produced content for its ecosystem.

YouTube are seriously moving into exclusive live, podcasting has huge potential but the open web has taken a dent. YouTube might have to reconsider how strict and controlling they have been on their demonetized plan, come for the tool stay for the network only works if you increase the size of the audience for the podcaster and you enable more advertising opportunities alongside pay for the views and listens that these personalities provide.

With the huge number of Podcast players, casts, overcast, acast, megaphone, etc there will likely be some honest conversations between them and a way to ensure open (RSS based) podcasts stays and importantly a way to advertise or provide advertising options. Inserting ads into podcasts just don’t work.

I look forward to how the next nine to twelve months play out in podcasting as a podcast addict.

This was due to be a feature in my weekly Must Reads newsletter but due to the length it’s homed here, make sure you read Must Reads for more insights and the best stories around.