Spotify Says It's Dominating the Podcasting Market Because of a Million-Plus Tiny Podcasts

Spotify's $100 million-plus Anchor acquisition is seemingly paying off. From a report: In data released today as part of its annual Wrapped look-back on the year, the company says Anchor, which makes podcast creation software, powered 80 percent of new podcasts on Spotify this year, meaning the software contributed more than 1 million shows to Spotify's catalog in 2020 alone. Overall, Anchor powers 70 percent of Spotify's total podcast catalog, or around 1.3 million out of over 1.9 million shows. People also seem to be listening to that content. Spotify says Anchor shows account for more consumption, in terms of time spent listening, than any other third-party podcast hosting or distribution provider on its platform. (Not counting shows owned or operated by Spotify.) This sounds surprising, at least to me, especially given that big networks like NPR, The New York Times, and Wondery all put their shows on Spotify. But Mike Mignano, head of podcast mission at Spotify, says the data point speaks to the large global podcasting ecosystem that people might not know exists. With more than a million Anchor shows on the platform, listening time adds up fast, even if some shows only have a small group of dedicated fans.

One media conglomerate for all...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is the end game. Deplatforming will be a superfluous term when information control is centralized, a despotic measure peddled by AmiMoJo.

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[AleRunner]

...is the end game. Deplatforming will be a superfluous term when information control is centralized, a despotic measure peddled by AmiMoJo

I am fascinated. Why is it that you think that information control is centralized is a despotic measure peddled by AmiMoJo?

RSS?

[sremick]

Any podcast unavailable as an RSS feed that I can use in my podcast player of choice is dead to me.

I see

[nospam007]

Aunt Agnes ranting online once and only Granny Weatherwax listening is now a podcast.

REALLY?!

[slashmydots]

Everyone on my fairly large Youtube channel keeps telling me to put my podcast style content on Spotify but I plainly said I'm not putting it on a platform I can't make a penny from without manually getting sponsors. But they're claiming millions?! Umm...did they roll out some sort of payment/monetization feature for small to mid-sized podcasts or something? Or are over a million people just that stupid and don't realize the sheer volume of money they can make on Youtube doing the same thing?

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[timeOday]

How is a youtube channel subscription even different than a podcast?

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Everyone on my fairly large Youtube channel keeps telling me to put my podcast style content on Spotify but I plainly said I'm not putting it on a platform I can't make a penny from without manually getting sponsors. But they're claiming millions?! Umm...did they roll out some sort of payment/monetization feature for small to mid-sized podcasts or something? Or are over a million people just that stupid and don't realize the sheer volume of money they can make on Youtube doing the same thing?

Probably becaus