4 years after Amazon’s acquisition of podcast community Wondery, the tech large is dismantling its $300 million buy and reorganizing varied audio properties into separate groups on the firm. As first reported by Bloomberg, this reorg will see the studio lose about 110 staff, and CEO Jen Sargent is departing the corporate.
Amazon informed Bloomberg it would proceed to supply podcasts, although their place inside the firm can be restructured. The extra narrative-focused podcasts beneath the Wondery model, equivalent to American Scandal and Enterprise Wars, will merge with Amazon’s Audible crew. A few of these podcasts will retain Wondery branding, and the Wondery Plus app will stay energetic. Subscribers to Wondery Plus get early entry to some podcast episodes via the app, although it's unclear at this level what functionalities will stay within the app, and which can be absorbed by Audible.
In the meantime, the celebrity-hosted exhibits equivalent to New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce and Armchair Knowledgeable with Dax Shepard can be rolled into a brand new crew that Amazon is asking Creator Companies. In line with Bloomberg, a predominant focus of this new crew can be promoting massive sponsorships. These titles are a part of a rising pattern towards video podcasts which have helped make YouTube the go-to platform for podcast consumption.
Steve Increase, VP for Audio, Twitch and Video games at Amazon, addressed the adjustments in a memo (printed by Deadline) despatched to Amazon staff. "The podcast panorama has advanced considerably over the previous few years. As video podcasting has grown in recognition, we have now realized that creator-led, video-integrated exhibits have totally different viewers wants and require distinct discovery, progress and monetization methods in contrast with audio-first, narrative sequence," he wrote.
Staff who had been let go as a part of these adjustments had been notified Monday, although Amazon spokesperson Alice Zhou informed The Verge that "lots of the impacted staff" could be moved to "different components of Amazon."
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-splits-up-the-wondery-podcast-network-and-lays-off-about-110-employees-185358357.html?src=rss