Spotify is canceling a small portion of its original podcast programming slate — eliminating 11 of about 500 current shows — as it looks to focus its firepower on the biggest, original hits.
The 11 shows come from Parcast and Gimlet, two podcast studios that Spotify acquired in early 2019 as part of the purchase in the space. The cuts will affect about 5% of Spotify’s total podcast staff, some of whom will be laid off while others will be reassigned to other teams, according to a source familiar with the change. No shows in Spotify or Ringer Studios were excluded.
Shows canceled are: From Gimlet, “How to Save a Planet”, “Crime Show” and “Every Little Thing”; It includes Parcast, “medical murders”, “criminals”, “crimes of passion”, “dictators”, “myths”, “haunted places”, “urban legends” and “horoscopes today”. Each podcast will expire over the next several months; The source said that “Horoscope Today” will extend to the second quarter of 2023.
Spotify declined to comment on the cancellations.
Spotify is shrinking its podcast list as part of a focus on its original and exclusive shows that have consistently topped the top 20 of its charts. These include hits like Warner Bros./DC’s “Batman Unburied”, Meghan Markle “Archetypes”, Alex Cooper “Call Her Daddy” and the thriller “Caso 63” as well as high-profile projects like Kim Kardashian’s newly launched “The System.” And other titles to come. The most listened-to podcast on Spotify on a regular basis is “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which is available exclusively on the platform under a $200 million multi-year deal with Rogan.
Meanwhile, Spotify recently refused to renew its exclusive deal with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, which was originally signed in 2019. The Obamas’ High Ground subsequently struck a new deal with Audible to program the original podcast.
So far, Spotify’s podcast business has been losing money. In 2021, it generated around €200 million in revenue in 2021 with a negative gross margin of -57%, Chief Financial Officer Paul Vogel told investors in June. Podcast losses will be higher this year, and will peak in 2022, according to Vogel. Within the next five years, Spotify expects its podcast business to generate gross margins of 40%-50%, he said — higher than its core music streaming business.
At the end of the second quarter, Spotify had 4.4 million podcasts on the platform — up from 2.9 million a year earlier — and the number of monthly users who subscribed to podcasts grew “by big double digits” over the year, the company said. Spotify released 100 new original and exclusive podcasts globally in the second quarter, including “Batman Unburied”.
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