Spotify has spent over $800M in podcasts with its new acquisition

His latest acquisition is about to be closed for $235 million and it is Megaphone, a podcast platform that focuses on publishing and monetizing podcasts, giving podcasters and media entrepreneurs tools to publish, monetize and measure their audio content.

With this purchase, Spotify wants to incorporate advertising into the podcasts it already offers on the platform to monetize them.

NEW PODCAST-ONLY SUBSCRIPTION PLANS

This new move may have to do with the scoring that Spotify would be doing to its users to know if they would be interested in paying a subscription fee just to listen to podcasts. According to a survey that has been sent to some users (including Variety president Andrew Wallenstein), Spotify would be considering charging between $2.99 and $7.99 per month, fees that would not give access to the music catalog.

If this quota were imposed Spotify would see its profit margin grow as the platform does not have to pay royalties to the podcasters.

According to Daniel Ek’s platform, in the third quarter of 2020, 22% of its monthly active users consumed podcasts on the platform.