Four years ago Amazon purchased independent podcast network Wondery, to sit and work alongside its audiobook company Audible, for around $300 million. This decision was likely made after watching Spotify expand to do similar. It was a logical add on to existing audio products.
It has today been announced that Wondery is to be dismantled and reorganised with more than a hundred employees including CEO Jen Sargent to depart the company.
There is a growing demand in the industry for podcasts to have a video feed. Wondery’s reorganisation will also have implications for LiSTNR / SCA who are the network’s sales representatives in Australia (see below – 11 podcasts in the top 200 of the June Triton Australian Podcast Ranker)
The signs were there that things weren’t going as well as liked for Jeff Bezos‘s Amazon. At the start of 2024 perhaps the biggest Wondery podcast asset SmartLess moved to SiriusXM on a reported $100 million multiyear deal. SiriusXM have recently decided to no longer partake in the Australian podcast ranker. Then, in February this year, Exactly Right Media also took their products including the flagship My Favorite Murder over to iHeartMedia. It is interesting to note that while Audible has rights to audiobook recordings of Diary of a CEO, the tremendously successful resultant podcast by Steven Bartlett is published through his own media company FlightStory with sale representation through Nova Entertainment.
According to Ashley Carmen in Bloomberg (subscription required) podcasts such as American Scandal and Business Wars that are more ‘podcast-y’ will become part of Audible. Others like New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (pictured – but not part of last month’s top 300 in Australia) and Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (#41) will become part of something that Amazon is calling Creator Services. Others will apparently retain the Wondery branding.
The trend is growing for podcasts to be multiplatform, with an increasing audience watching on YouTube. Wondery’s dismantlement is Amazon trying to put audio with audio and make other multiplatform and influential producers work better for them elsewhere. That has a knock on effect on the audio industry, with the impact starting to be felt in Australia.
Radioinfo has reached out to LiSTNR for comment.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.