But Wait, There's More .... Amazon Expands Podcast-Like Offerings

Just when you think we might be approaching "peak audio," with the endless introductions of new podcasts, another big audio-on-demand related announcement yesterday, this time from Amazon and their Audible division. They are now bundling Audible Channels into their ever-expanding list of Amazon Prime services. Essentially, this takes Audible’s recently introduced short-form spoken-word content and blows up their distribution to Prime’s 63 million subscribers.

Audible Channels include original podcast-type content, a limited selection of audiobooks as well as audio editions of news from major periodicals.

While subscription figures for Audible are hard to come by, this content package is currently available for $4.95 as a stand-alone subscription but now free for Prime members. 

While Audible does not call their content “podcasts,” and indeed they are not distributed on podcast players, this move beyond the “walled-garden” of subscription, likely makes them a major player in podcast-like spoken-word content.

Steven Goldstein, Amplifi Media

I will be moderating "Podcast Forecast - What's Next?" at the RAIN Summit in Nashville, next week on Tuesday, September 20 with great panelists: Sarah Van Mosel/Acast, John Rosso/Triton Digital, Brian Landau/DGital Media, Brendan Regan/audioBoom and Brendan Monaghan/Panoply.  

I will also be presenting at the adjacent Radio Show "7 Things You Need To Know About Podcasting Today" on Thursday, September 22 at 2:30pm.