Just some months after asserting a big wave of layoffs, Spotify plans to conduct one other spherical of layoffs. This time, the job cuts will have an effect on the podcast division as a part of a company reorganization. Particularly, the corporate plans to merge Parcast and Gimlet Studios.
In an inside memo, Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s head of the podcast division, introduced that the corporate was making modifications that may result in a workforce discount of two%. This modification will have an effect on round 200 jobs and those that are impacted have already obtained an invite to speak with somebody from the HR division.
“We’re increasing our partnership efforts with main podcasters from throughout the globe with a tailor-made strategy optimized for every present and creator. This basic pivot from a extra uniform proposition will permit us to help the creator neighborhood higher,” Elhabashi wrote.
“Nonetheless, doing so requires adapting; over the previous few months, our senior management crew has labored intently with HR to find out the optimum group for this subsequent chapter. In consequence, we’ve got made the tough however crucial choice to make a strategic realignment of our group and scale back our international podcast vertical and different capabilities by roughly 200 folks, or 2% of Spotify’s workforce,” she continued.
Spotify guarantees that workers who’re affected by the layoffs will get “beneficiant severance packages, together with prolonged Healthcare protection and rapid entry to outplacement help.”
In 2019, Spotify made an enormous wager on podcasts, and on unique content material specifically. The corporate acquired some in style podcast networks, akin to Parcast and Gimlet Media. This transfer into first-party content material was an costly one as the corporate spent round $200 million for Gimlet Media and $56 million for Parcast.
However the firm is now scaling again this authentic content material technique. Proof of this lies within the mixture of Parcast and Gimlet into Spotify Studios. In her memo, Sahar Elhabashi names among the podcasts which might be nonetheless actively developed, akin to ‘Stolen’, ‘The Journal’, ‘Science Vs’, ‘Heavyweight’, ‘Serial Killers’, and ‘Conspiracy Theories’.
And should you’re questioning about The Ringer, one other content material firm that was acquired by Spotify, it’s going to stay a separate enterprise unit from Spotify Studios. The Ringer has been primarily centered on sports activities protection, but it surely additionally covers popular culture and extra.
As a part of this announcement, Spotify shared some metrics about its podcast enterprise. The corporate says that there at the moment are 100 million podcast listeners on Spotify throughout 5 million exhibits. Podcast advert income has additionally skilled “excessive double-digit progress” from 2021 to 2022.
“Given these learnings and our management place, we not too long ago launched into the following section of our podcast technique, which is concentrated on delivering much more worth for creators (and customers!),” Elhabashi wrote in her memo. “This begins with maximizing consumption from the huge viewers we’ve established by way of format innovation and guaranteeing that extra creators in additional locations obtain success.”
Final yr, Spotify canceled 11 authentic podcasts and laid off a few of its podcast employees. The corporate most certainly selected to cancel underperforming exhibits to be able to give attention to hits and make room for some new exhibits. Right this moment’s transfer is extra important and it may result in essential modifications in Spotify’s authentic content material technique within the coming months.