Amazon brings podcasts to Amazon Music, which could help increase a growing US podcast audience

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Amazon Music introduced podcasts for customers in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan for no additional cost. Initially, the platform will have a catalogue of 70,000 podcasts, including Amazon’s first slate of original podcasts—a limited library compared with Spotify and Apple, which each have more than 1 million podcasts.

Amazon is entering the podcast foray.

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According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon will only collect ad revenues from its exclusive content for now, similar to what Spotify has done, though it’s unclear whether that applies to host-read ads or Amazon-inserted advertisements, per The Wall Street Journal. The news follows Amazon’s recent addition of Twitch livestreams to Amazon Music, another sign of the company’s diversifying audio strategy.

Amazon Music is the one of the most popular music streaming platforms in the US, and its foray into podcasts will likely help expand the medium’s growing audience. According to our estimates, Amazon Music will reach 45.8 million US listeners in 2020, bolstered by its default placement on Amazon Echo devices and inclusion with Prime memberships.

That’s more listeners than Apple Music’s 35.1 million, though less than Pandora’s 58.2 million and Spotify’s 78.5 million. Introducing podcasts to Amazon Music may help expand the overall podcast audience—106.7 million in 2020—and expose those listeners to a format that continues to attract advertiser interest. US podcast ad spending is expected to surpass $1 billion next year, per our estimates.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-entering-podcast-foray-via-apple-music-2020-9

Podcast, Spotify, Amazon.com