Amazon has announced that it has acquired the podcast producing platform Wondery, which will now enrich the catalogue of the company’s own music streaming platform-Amazon Music.
The deal is yet to be closed and therefore the terms have not been undisclosed. However, Wall Street Journal, earlier this month reported that the deal might value up to $300 million.
“With Amazon Music, Wondery will be able to provide even more high-quality, innovative content and continue their mission of bringing a world of entertainment and knowledge to their audiences, wherever they listen,” the company said in a blog post.
This deal has been done by Amazon to make sure that it can compete with Spotify in the race of podcasts. Recently the number of people who listen to podcasts has increased greatly and more people are being gravitated towards the art form. Spotify remains the biggest name in the industry, especially with the recent acquisition of possibly the biggest podcast on the planet lead by Joe Rogan.
The four-year-old podcast producer Wondery was founded by the former CEO of 21st Century Fox’s International Channels Hernan Lopez. The platform has attracted as many as 20 million monthly unique listeners, according to a report and has popular podcast originals like “Dr. Death,” “Bad Batch,” “The Shrink Next Door,” “Business Wars,” “Joe Exotic: Tiger King,” “American History Tellers,” “Tides of History,” “The Daily Smile” and “Imagined Life.” Thus, with this new acquisition, Amazon wants to create a level playing field against its competitor.
Amazon has also informed, “When the deal closes, nothing will change for listeners, and they’ll continue to be able to access Wondery podcasts through a variety of providers.”
However, while nothing will change for the listeners, the same cannot be said about the company’s management. The e-commerce giant has said that when the deal closes, the current CEO Lopez would step down and the current COO Jen Sargent will take over day-to-day operations.
