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Amazon Music adds audiobooks in Spotify fight

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  • First look: In a move that could be targeted at Spotify, Amazon Music is adding the entire Audible audiobook catalog to its app. Unlimited subscribers in the US, UK and Canada can now listen to one Audible title for free each month (of any length), alongside more than 100 million songs in HD Audio, and a range of ad-free podcasts. Audible is the best-known brand for audiobooks (and lays claim to be an early podcast company, too): this offer also includes the company’s original productions. We’ve analysis, below.

  • First look: Acast has signed an exclusive ad sales deal with Casefile - and it’s a big deal: the show has 80 million listens. The show was with Audioboom.

  • How bad is “podfade”, the phenomenon where podcasters stop podcasting? Research by Podnews suggests that of the 24,464 podcasts started in January this year, 7,388 - 30.2% - haven’t posted a new episode since the end of February.

    • 22.7% of shows started on Spotify for Creators in January haven’t posted a new episode since the end of February - that’s better than the average, as is 20.4% for Ausha, 18.9% for Megaphone, 12.6% for Podbean and 12.3% for Libsyn. As you’d expect, podcast hosting companies with well-publicised free trials show the highest levels of podfade, including Spreaker (40%), RSS (71%) and Hubhopper (83%).
    • These figures were calculated from Podcast Index data in August, using the dates for the first and last episodes in the feed. Some podcast hosting companies delete free accounts when the free trial ends, so they’ll not appear on this data. The top 5 companies with new shows in January this year were Spotify for Creators, RSS, Buzzsprout, Spreaker and Acast: who between them attracted 60% of new shows in that month.

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Analysis

On the face of it, Amazon Music’s announcement today is a better deal than Spotify. Spotify offers 350,000 audiobooks, but only offers around 250,000 in its Premium bundle: and a confusing “15 hours per month for free”. Today’s Amazon offer is four times as large, and the offer of one book a month is much clearer, and broadly similar (most books we found in Spotify’s featured section are around 8 or 9 hours long, so you get one whole book a month there anyway). Amazon’s offer for podcasts is better for many people, too, with ad-free podcasts (which the company pays for); and Amazon launched HD Audio back in 2019, whereas Spotify HiFi, announced in Feb 2021, still has yet to launch.

Amazon Music has a free tier for Prime subscribers, though Unlimited is an extra US $9.99 a month. In 2020, Amazon reported over 200mn Prime subscribers globally, though they’ve not updated that figure since. In spite of that, Amazon Music is only responsible for 1.5% of all podcast downloads globally (OP3, Aug), 0.9% (Buzzsprout, Oct), 0.3% (Libsyn, Sep). Will a free audiobook change the numbers?

Elsewhere, Apple offers audiobooks, as does Google, yet neither offers a subscription offer, and both are entirely separate from podcasts and not cross-promoted. And perhaps you don’t need to pay at all: your library card also gives you free audiobooks, thanks to the Libby app - even books banned in some US states.

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Podcast News

Companies mentioned above:
Acast logoAcastAmazon logoAmazonAmazon Music logoAmazon MusicApple logoAppleAudible logoAudibleAudioboom logoAudioboomAusha logoAushaBuzzsprout logoBuzzsproutCaptivate logoCaptivateGoalhanger logoGoalhangerLibsyn logoLibsynMagellan AI logoMagellan AIMegaphone logoMegaphoneOP3 logoOP3Podbean logoPodbeanPodcast Index logoPodcast IndexSpotify logoSpotifySpreaker logoSpreakerYouTube logoYouTube

Podcast data for Nov 19

#1 in Apple Podcasts
US flag The Joe Rogan Experience (Joe Rogan)
IN flag Bhagavad Gita (Spydor Studios)

#1 in Spotify
US flag The Joe Rogan Experience (Joe Rogan)
IN flag The Stories of Mahabharata (Sudipta Bhawmik)

Over the last week, 204,540 podcasts published at least one new episode (up 1.2%). source

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