I’ve got three things to flag about the Swedish streaming music platform and aspiring all-consuming audio distributor:
- Spotify’s acquisition of Gimlet Media led to a $29 million gain for Graham Holdings, which was an investor in the podcast company. Graham Holdings, of course, is also the parent company of Panoply, the now podcast hosting and ad-tech company. The information comes Graham’s Q1 2019 earnings report, and you can sort through the wire write-up of it here.
- From The Verge: “A test seen by The Verge shows several short podcast episodes placed alongside personalized music suggestions in a playlist meant for the drive to work. Spotify doesn’t have a widely available podcast recommendation tool or offer curated podcast playlists right now, so this appears to be a look at what’s to come.”
- From The Drum: Spotify has launched a new global brand campaign with a “twin-pronged approach champions the ubiquity and discovery of its extensive library of music and podcasts which have seen it welcome 217 million users, with localised content targeting each target market across out-of-home, digital, radio and social.”