Listen up.
Spotify has made a bold move in the battle for streaming supremacy with the “strategic acquisitions” of two media companies that focus exclusively on podcasting.
Following a very public power play, the Swedish giant now has Gimlet Media Inc. and Anchor under its green-and-black umbrella.
The former is a podcast network and digital media company with shows like Reply All, Crimetown and StartUp on its roster, while Anchor is a podcast production app for users to produce and distribute their own shows.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the news via a blog post entitled ‘Audio First’ in which he noted the company’s expectation that a significant amount of people will be listening to non-music content on the platform in the near future.
“We believe it is a safe assumption that, over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content,” said Ek, who expects the move to “meaningfully accelerate [Spotify’s] path to becoming the world’s leading audio…
