We’ve written a lot (well, Nick Quah has written a lot) about Spotify’s efforts to move in on Apple’s 15-year position as the undisputed No. 1 platform for podcasts. The Swedish streaming giant has made podcasts more central to its apps, negotiated exclusive deals with production companies, and thrown a ton of money around — spending $400 million-plus to buy Gimlet Media, Anchor, Parcast, and most recently The Ringer.
So, is it working? Some interesting new data from Germany seems to indicate yes — and gives us a reminder that platforms aren’t just neutral vessels for all kinds of content.
The data is from German podcast network zebra-audio.net and hosting and analytics provider Podigee, which looked at anonymized data on how and where Germans consumed more than 6,000 podcasts across 2019. (If you read German, you can find the full results here.)
Two points jumped out at me:
Spotify has been quite successful at capturing podcast listening, quickly.
In January 2019,…
