Amazon Is Laying Off Wondery Workers as It Rethinks Its Podcast Enterprise

Amazon is reportedly shedding greater than 100 workers because it overhauls its podcast enterprise amid main shifts within the business.

Bloomberg first reported on Monday that Amazon is laying off about 110 staff from its Wondery podcast studio and shifting some reveals to Audible, its different audio-focused subsidiary. As a part of the shake-up, Wondery CEO Jen Sargent is leaving the corporate.

The reorganization comes because the podcast business faces its personal “video killed the radio star” second, with creator-led, video-based reveals surging in reputation and thus being extra monetizable.

The e-commerce big despatched Gizmodo the next assertion in regards to the modifications:

The podcast panorama has advanced considerably prior to now few years, significantly with the rise of video-forward, creator-led content material. These modifications replicate that evolution and can streamline how Wondery integrates additional into Amazon. By making these modifications, we will higher assist creators in monetizing their content material throughout a number of channels, assist them develop their model IP, and simplify the method for advertisers whereas making content material extra accessible to audiences wherever they like to eat it. This evolution builds on Wondery’s early success with video-forward reveals and positions us to raised serve creators, prospects, and advertisers.

In a memo to employees obtained by Deadline, Steve Growth, Amazon’s vp of audio, Twitch, and video games, stated the rise of video podcasting has created “totally different viewers wants” and requires “distinct discovery, progress, and monetization methods” in comparison with conventional audio-only narrative podcasts.

Within the letter, Growth stated that Amazon is reorganizing Wondery with its narrative podcasts like Dr. Demise and Enterprise Wars shifting to Audible. The studio’s chief content material officer, Marshall Lewy, will even be headed to Audible.

For Wondery’s creator-led reveals like Dax Shepard’s Armchair Skilled and Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Tops, a brand new Creator Providers crew beneath Amazon’s Expertise Providers division might be taking up. This crew will proceed working the creator-focused podcast studio beneath the Wondery model, working intently with a choose group of high creators to develop their audiences and deepen their partnership with Amazon.

Bloomberg highlighted LeBron James, who hosts the podcast Thoughts the Sport and has served as a Prime Day spokesperson, as a blueprint for this new strategy.

Amazon initially acquired Wondery in 2021 for about $300 million, in keeping with media reviews. At its peak, the studio noticed a few of its hit podcasts like Soiled John tailored into TV reveals.

However Amazon isn’t the one firm that has poured large cash into podcasting. Final yr, Spotify reportedly signed a $250 million deal to proceed managing sponsorships for Joe Rogan’s podcast. In the meantime, SiriusXM paid $125 million to poach Alex Cooper’s Name Her Daddy podcast from Spotify.

As competitors has elevated within the business, there have already been some losers too. In June, Audacy, the radio big owned by a gaggle led by Soros Fund Administration, shut down its podcast-focused Pineapple Avenue Studios.

Public media can be going through challenges. The Company for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which helps fund Nationwide Public Radio (NPR), a pioneer in podcasting, is about to wind down operations and lay off most of its employees by September 30. This transfer comes as President Donald Trump has lower the nonprofit’s funding.