Immediate Media has announced a partnership with Spotify’s podcasting brand Megaphone to host its podcast portfolio. From March 2023, Immediate-produced shows will be hosted and monetised through Spotify’s market-leading platform.
A leading podcast producer, Immediate’s output includes the HistoryExtra Podcast (which recently celebrated 200m downloads) Radio Times’ View From My Sofa, BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast and the BBC Good Food Podcast. All told, the company produced 750 podcast episodes last year, with 12 ongoing series across its brands and 5.5m downloads per month. Stars including Jed Mercurio, Louis Theroux, Will Ferrell and Daniel Radcliffe have all joined Radio Times’ View From My Sofa.
The company says partnering with Spotify will increase the reach and profile of its podcasts, driving innovation and commercial growth. Currently, Spotify has 489 million MAUs, making it the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service. As for Megaphone, the platform has established itself as a leading outlet for enterprise publishers and professional podcasters globally, as it offers a comprehensive set of tools that enable publishers to publish, monetise, and grow their podcast businesses.
Sean Cornwell, Immediate’s Platforms CEO, says: “Immediate has been consistently growing our podcast output, reach and revenues over the last few years, and our partnership with Spotify will help further accelerate this growth. The combination of our trusted brands and quality content is continually attracting new audiences and this partnership will enable us to significantly scale our proposition.”
Chelsea Bradbury, head of UK publisher partnerships at Spotify added: “Over the past year, we’ve been focused on strengthening Megaphone’s offering to ensure it remains the best place for publishers to understand and grow their audiences and monetise their content. We are thrilled to partner with Immediate Media and we believe these tools will play a critical role in helping them accelerate their growth.”
Immediate Media, which describes itself as “a special interest content and platform company”, was created through the combination of several publishing groups including Origin Publishing and BBC Magazines – which is why its portfolio includes so many brands associated with the BBC. It was acquired in 2017 by leading German publisher Hubert Burda Media, which has annual revenues of around €2.6bn.
