ABOVE THE din of chat-shows, dramas and documentaries streamed to blaring voice-activated speakers, a louder sound can be heard: ker-ching. On December 29th Spotify, an audio-streaming service, aired the first in a series of exclusive podcasts by Prince Harry and Meghan Mar-kle. A few weeks earlier the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was in talks to buy Wondery, a producer of popular pod-casts including "Dirty John" and "Dr Death", for $3oom. The tech giant, which got into podcasting only in September, has also signed up expensive stars such as Will Smith and dj Khaled. The deals are the latest in an industrywide spree. Last year Daniel Ek, Spotify's boss, declared that "audio-not just music-would be the future" of his firm. Since then Spotify has been on a billion-dollar podcasting binge, acquiring production and ad-tech firms such as Gimlet, Anchor and Megaphone, as well as shows; in May it paid $100m for "The Joe Rogan Experience". Apple, the biggest podcast distributor, has bought Scout fm, a podcasting app, and signed up stars like Oprah Winfrey.
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