Business

Amazon gets into the podcast business

Posted December 31, 2020 6:00 am

By JOSEPH PISANI

NEW YORK (AP) - Amazon is jumping into the podcast business.

The online shopping giant is buying Wondery, a 4-year-old producer of popular true crime podcasts such as 'œDr. Death'ť and 'œDirty John,'ť which was later turned into a TV series.

An explosion of new podcasts has led to a number of acquisitions as competing platforms try to grow their audiences and their ad revenue. The music streaming platform Spotify bought two podcast companies in 2019 and it's added high-profile hosts to its roster, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Wondery podcasts will be part of Amazon's music streaming service, but it will still be available on other platforms as well.

'œThis is a pivotal moment to expand the Amazon Music offering beyond music as listener habits evolve,'ť Amazon said in a blog post Wednesday.

Terms of the acquisition were not released.

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