According to a new report from Bloomberg, Amazon has shut down Wondery Podcast Studio, which was acquired in late 2020, cutting 110 jobs as part of a broader restructuring of its audio business.
The company will either move its existing Wondery series under Audible Banner, or a new “Creator Services” team that houses character-driven shows such as Jason and Travis Kelce podcasts.
“The podcast landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years,” Steve Boom, vice president of Audio, Twitch and Games at Amazon, wrote in a staff note that Bloomberg saw. “The rise of videos blurred the lines about what it means to be a podcast creator.”
The story points out that the changes indicate that the push to Amazon’s podcasts is not going as planned. Despite securing a well-known name in the business, the company is currently shifting its strategy to compete better with rivals such as Spotify and YouTube, as the podcasting industry adopts video format.
