What a Spotify Empire Could Look Like
Good morning!
I’m writing again from Austin, Texas. No preamble this week. Let’s just get to it.
Your Weekly Roundup
The good news this week: There were no major layoffs at any media or news organization. Poynter has been tracking all of the furloughs, layoffs, and closures around the media industry and...it is a depressing list to look at. There has been so much bad news, in such a short time, that I even missed the fact that at the end of May, Playboy announced that it was laying off its digital staff and pivoting to ecommerce.
Following up on the main topic of last week’s email, Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, sent an email to staff last Friday with a reminder that they are not allowed to donate to “groups that have more leeway to engage in political activities and lobbying.” As The Wrap, reported, Zucker stated these policies were in place to maintain “objectivity.” Though he did note that the staff were permitted to donate to nonprofits, and earlier in the week he approved CNN staff posting “Black Lives Matter” on social media, but not calls for defunding the police.
Last Thursday, The Goods, which is part of Vox, published a story titled “The racial reckoning in women’s media.” The piece details some of the discrimination issues at Refinery29 and Man Repeller, where editor-in-chief Christene Barberich and founder Leandra Medine each stepped down from their respective positions. That piece ran right before Audrey Gelman, the founder of women’s co-working space and social club The Wing, resigned amid staff allegations of her own mistreatment of employees of color.
Meanwhile, at the New York Times, in the wake of Adam Rapoport’s resignation from Bon Appétit, Edmund Lee wrote a comprehensive piece recapping Condé Nast’s problems diversifying its staff as well as the treatment of people of color within the organization’s multiple brands.
Speaking of the Times, The Daily Beast published a fascinating look at the June 7th resignation of James Bennet, specifically from the angle of the decision-making of A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times. The piece even leads with comment from Sulzberger himself and is a real inside look at the machinations that led to James Bennet’s resignation.
Following up on the theme of Google/Facebook vs. publishers that has run through this newsletter, on Sunday, The Guardian reported that Facebook had rejected instruction from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that would have the company pay for the use of news content from publishers. As The Guardian reports, Facebook said they could cut out the use of news content without any impact on their business. However, this response comes right after the launch of their much-heralded News Tab.
Finally, just for fun, here is a long interview with Bob Dylan in the New York Times. My takes: his answers about the Eagles and the Rolling Stones are jokes and his aside about Van Morrison is an all-time Dylan line.
What I’m Engaged With
This week, I want to focus on a crazy/maybe not-so-crazy theory: The fact that Spotify’s continued expansion into podcasts signals an eventual move to them becoming a digital media conglomerate.
First, let’s take a step back. I’ve always been fascinated with podcasts. I first learned about them in 2006, when I was visiting a friend who was studying abroad in Paris. Then I gravitated toward Bill Simmons’s podcast on ESPN.com in 2007 when it launched. That inspired me to start my own short-lived podcast from 2010-2012. Even at Artsy, I helped launch our now-defunct podcast.
So, I’ve been watching as Spotify first acquired Gimlet Media for $230 million in 2019, and then as they purchased The Ringer in February of this year for nearly $200 million. Between those transactions, Spotify spent nearly half a million dollars on bringing in established content creation operations under their company umbrella.
The Ringer purchase notably included their robust podcast network (specifically Bill Simmons’s incredibly popular podcast) but also their written and reported content as well as their video content.
Last month, Hank Green wrote a piece in The Washington Post warning about the danger of Spotify’s expansion and desire to be the final word when it comes to podcasts. Green calls out Spotify’s purchase of Anchor, which aids in podcast creation—meaning Spotify could become something like the YouTube for audio. Green’s piece suggests that the competition may curb Spotify’s expansion. But I’m not so sure.
In May, Nick Quah, who runs the excellent Hot Pod newsletter, interviewed Bill Simmons for Vulture. In it, Simmons discusses how Spotify wants to be the dominant audio platform everywhere, and that includes figuring out how to create audio sports programming that works for not only domestic, but global audiences.
There’s a lot of salesmanship in Simmon’s answers—he really makes Spotify sound good. And part of me can see Spotify not only dominating original audio programming, but also moving into the news and digital media space.
How? For example, in this week’s issue of Hot Pod, Nick Quah details the upcoming launch of Axios’s daily news podcast, “Axios Today.” The podcast is basically Axios’s answer to the New York Times’s incredibly successful “The Daily.” Over the past few years, Axios has developed a very engaged and loyal following. You may have issues with their style of delivering news, but it does feel unique and has led to imitators.
But Axios hasn’t had an expansive audio offering. If they look to scale the type of audio they are doing, couldn’t they be a potential acquisition target for Spotify in another two years? I have no evidence on this, its purely speculation, but if you were Spotify, wouldn’t it be tempting to build out a digital media news arm with a leading daily podcast franchise that could rival the New York Times’s product?
As Ben Smith at the New York Times wrote about...the Times earlier this year, “the story of consolidation in media is a story about the Times itself.” That consolidation has mainly happened from an approach on the print and digital journalism end. What if Spotify reaches a kind of media consolidation from the audio end? What kind of subscription fees could they charge for a product offering that looks like this: the core Spotify listening tool; Gimlet’s IP and audio production muscle; Axios and its IP for news; and The Ringer and its IP for sports and entertainment. It may not be the New York Times—but that’s pretty significant.
With so many jobs lost and publications on the ropes due to the last few months, the next few years could see a rapid increase of consolidation just for survival. And maybe Spotify was already planning on that before the pandemic.
A Little Bit of Culture
This week: Billy Ocean’s 1976 song “Love Really Hurts Without You”
In the first edition of this email, I told you all that you’d be getting a lot of songs from the 1970s in this section—and I didn’t lie!
Over the past month, I’ve listened to Billy Ocean’s “Love Really Hurts Without You” a lot. At some points on repeat for over an hour. I found out about the song thanks to a key scene in the Netflix show “Sex Education” (the subject of this section last week).
The scene itself has to be included in a long list of iconic moments from teen movies or shows. But the song is one I really should have known about a long time ago. I never really explored Billy Ocean’s catalog, I just knew him as “Get Outta My Dream, Get Into My Car” guy. But this song has it all: impassioned vocals, slick 1970s production with a classic Motown melody and heart, and a chorus that basically explodes out of the speakers. I don’t want to even think about how much I would have listened to this song years ago when I used to kind of revel in heartbreak.
Plus, I’ve been listening to it in Austin during the times I’ve gotten to drive around town. There’s something that will never get old to me about listening to a deep cut track from the 1970s on a car stereo, as I’m driving on roads I don’t know that well, while I feel far from home.
The Action I’ve Taken
For the next few weeks, and maybe months, I’ll conclude each newsletter with a brief list of actions I’ve taken each week to help end police violence and to support an America that is free of racism. This isn’t meant to virtue signal or pat myself on the back—it’s merely meant to show my commitment to change. I won’t share any donation figures here but can provide them upon request.
Continued to contact state government officials using this excellent tool. I’m going state-by-state each week.
Donated to change the status of the KKK to a terrorist organization.
Donated to Project Nia.
Donated for Justice for the Murder of Rayshard Brooks.