This streamlined content repurposing is accomplished with two of Spotify’s acquisitions: Australia-based Whooshkaa and U.S.-based Megaphone. “Whooshkaa offers radio broadcasters a specialized tool that makes it simple to turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast content, providing a new opportunity to re-distribute and re-monetize their content,” the company says.
This venture is motivated by research showing that radio listeners are shifting to podcast listening “in droves,” Spotify says. The logic is explained like this:
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From 2019 to 2022, time spent listening to broadcast radio online grew by 50% (Edison Research, Share of Ear Report, Q3’2022).
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Consumers want to listen to their favorite audio content on their own schedule, which has contributed to the rise in podcasting.
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This recent shift in listener habits represents a huge opportunity for broadcasters, who already have a deep catalog of premium content, but lack the tools to easily convert it to an on-demand podcast.
Spotify says that targeting Gen Z listeners is key. On the business side, spotify evangelizes “a huge revenue opportunity for broadcast publishers.” Podcast advertising revenue is projected by multiple sources to reach or exceed the $2-billion threshold this year.
We had questions about implementation, and asked Diane Bickel (Global Publisher Marketing, Spotify) about the technical hook-up. “A Megaphone account is required to access broadcast-to-podcast” she said. “After a simple, one-time setup process in Megaphone, broadcast-to-podcast will automatically create new podcast episodes from previously broadcasted content.”
Bickel noted that the new function is already being used by large publishers, including FOX News Audio. We notice that the FOX News podcast page highlights at least three hourly podcast titles and a one-minute weather update podcast, all using Megaphone.
At this time the broadcast-to-podcast system is available only to talk radio, and the focus is on enterprise broadcasters.