Spotify’s BILLION investment in podcasting
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Spotify went on a spending spree once it saw a big opportunity in podcasting. It spent $140 million to buy a podcasting platform called Anchor.
It then spent $800 million on exclusive content just for its platform. Content like The Michelle Obama Podcast, Kim Kardashian’s The System, Meghan Markle’s Archetypes, and media companies like Gimlet, The Ringer, and Parcast. The most notable one exclusive content was the Joe Rogan Experience in which it spent a whopping $200 million on it.
Spotify was clearly in investment mode.
By growing its audio selection, Spotify hopes to keep existing customers on its platform and grow new users. It also allows them to explore other monetization strategies like ads for example. Spotify has a ton of user data and listening habits—perfect for advertisers. So podcasting was essentially cheaper. It didn’t have to serve music labels. Spotify’s strategy here was to bring more and more studios and content in-house to build out its own original content (similar to what Netflix has done with its original content).
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