After spending several hundred million dollars on the acquisitions of podcast companies Gimlet and Anchor last month, Spotify is tripling down on its expansion into the podcast market with the purchase of a mystery-themed podcast company.
Reported by Reuters, Spotify has agreed to buy the podcast startup, Parcast. It has a focus on mystery-themed content and has produced 18 “premium podcast series” over the last few years.
Parcast, founded in 2016, specializes in crime and mystery-themed audio content. It has launched 18 premium podcast series, including “Serial Killers,” “Unsolved Murders,” “Cults” and “Conspiracy Theories.”
It’s unclear how much Spotify paid for Parcast, but Spotify is believed to have spent over $300 million between the Gimlet and Anchor acquisitions. The company previously said it had set aside $400-$500 million for 2019 acquisitions.
While Apple dominates the podcast market for now, Spotify’s CEO said last month that it is trailing Apple as the “second-biggest podcasting platform.” He further explained why moving into podcasts more seriously is important to the company.
In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform. And, more importantly, users love having podcasts as a part of their Spotify experience. Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music […]
Based on radio industry data, we believe it is a safe assumption that, over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content […] We are building a platform that provides a meaningful opportunity for creators, excites and engages our users, and builds an even more robust business model for Spotify in an industry we believe will become significantly larger when you add Internet-level monetization to it.
However, time will tell if this move will work out for Spotify. As its subscriber base has been growing, its revenue per user has been dropping. Figuring out a way to monetize podcasts may prove difficult.
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