Spotify cancels two critically acclaimed podcasts: ‘Heavyweight’ and ‘Stolen’

Spotify, the audio streaming platform, said Tuesday it would not renew its contracts for two critically acclaimed podcasts, “Heavyweight” and “Stolen,” the latest sign that the company is reining in its podcast ambitions as it struggles to become consistently profitable.

The shows, which are produced by Gimlet Media, the podcast studio that Spotify acquired in 2019, will conclude their seasons and then have the option to shop their shows elsewhere.

“We are extremely proud of the teams that supported these talented storytellers in each of the incredible episodes of ‘Heavyweight’ and ‘Stolen,’” a Spotify spokeswoman said, adding that the company will “work with the show’s creators working together to ensure a smooth transition for wherever these series go.”

Hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, ‘Heavyweight’ delved into the stories that shape people’s lives for seven seasons in an effort to help them create better endings. The creators of the show said on social media“We are so proud of everything we have created and we hope the show finds a new home in the future.”

“Stolen,” which received this year’s Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting, was created by Connie Walker, a journalist who investigated her late father’s life and experiences, as well as those of hundreds of other Indigenous children in Canada’s residential school system.

The decision came a day after Spotify announced it would cut nearly a fifth of its workforce, its third round of layoffs so far this year, as it strives for consistent profitability. The layoffs and curtailment of podcast content come as the tech industry reckons the end of a decade of rock-bottom interest rates that fueled its growth.

Media companies have also suffered from a shortfall in advertising revenue, fueled in part by tighter advertising budgets and economic worries about a possible recession that never quite materialized.

These forces have prompted some major tech and media companies to maintain their investments in so-called “always on” shows that publish daily or weekly and reduce their investments in limited-run or seasonal series, which are harder to make profitable, Nick Quah said . , the writer of HotPoda popular newsletter about podcasts.

“All this is happening, this economic instability, but the fact is there is still a huge podcast audience,” Mr Quah said. “There’s an existential way we’re talking about the podcast industry right now, but the audience has continued to grow.”

a Report 2023 Edison research on podcast consumers found that podcasts have more mainstream listeners than ever who are receptive to podcast advertising.

About 64 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12 has listened to a podcast, and about 120 million people in the same demographic group had recently listened to a podcast, the report found.

Spotify, like other tech companies, was primarily driven by the pursuit of potential growth during the pandemic, Mr. Quah said.

Company paid $230 million for Gimlet Media in 2019 and about $200 million more for The Ringer, Bill Simmons’ sports media company, in 2020. Later that year, as consumers spent even more time listening to podcasts during the pandemic, Amazon bought popular podcast studio Wondery for $300 million, while SiriusXM paid $325 million for the platform and publisher Stitcher.

But then the boom, or at least the apparent potential to profit from that boom, disappeared, leaving Spotify with a product worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Eric Nuzum, a podcast strategist and co-founder of independent studio Magnificent Noise, said that “you have to separate Spotify from the rest of the podcast industry” because the company has a different business model with two main revenue streams: subscriptions and advertising. And for years the company tried to figure out what podcasting was all about, Mr. Nuzum added.

Spotify made those big investments and became “the £800 gorilla,” Mr Nuzum said.

It quickly became clear that while much of the tech industry likes to ‘fail fast’ and ‘move fast’, this doesn’t work with journalism that can take months or years to create, and which has an audience or brand needs to be built, according to Mr. Nuzum said.

Spotify’s previous decision to keep some podcasts exclusively on the platform – rather than being openly available on the web and general podcasting apps – also negated much of the potential for reaching and growing audiences, said Mr. Nuzum.

Now Spotify appears to be honing a strategy that they think will make a podcast successful: bringing in celebrities with built-in fan bases, like Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama, Meghan Markle and Joe Rogan, whose deal is reportedly worth more than $200 million. dollars.

“The problem is you pay all the money to acquire the talent and make no investments to make the product good,” Mr. Nuzum said. “And I think that’s why they’ve been burned over and over again.”

Adam Satariano reporting contributed.