Spotify will buy The Ringer, the podcast-centric media company run and owned by Bill Simmons, and plans to hire Simmons and his approximately 90 employees
Spotify's fourth podcast acquisition in about a year closes out a run that started with Gimlet Media and Anchor in February 2019 and moved fast once sources confirmed early-stage talks in January. Unlike those studio-and-tooling buys, The Ringer brings a personality-led network — Bill Simmons plus roughly 90 employees — that had already cleared $15M+ in annual revenue on its own.
The deal matters because it converts an independent media company into wholly owned Spotify IP, and the arc since confirms the strategy: an SEC filing later put the price at $141M–$196M in cash, and Simmons stayed on to run more than just his own network.
First-order effects
Bill Simmons and his ~90 employees move from independent owners to Spotify hires, giving Spotify full control of The Ringer's sports and pop-culture catalog rather than a licensing relationship.
The Ringer's $15M+ revenue base shifts onto Spotify's balance sheet, deepening the podcast portfolio Spotify began assembling with Gimlet and Anchor a year earlier.
Second-order effects
Owning hosts' voices and catalogs set up later monetization plays on the same assets — by 2023 Simmons said Spotify was building AI tools trained on its hosts' voices for targeted ads.
The buy-content-then-buy-infrastructure sequence continued within the year when Spotify paid $235M for Megaphone's podcast publishing and targeted-advertising technology.
Third-order effects
Talent acquired as founders keep climbing inside the buyer — Simmons was later promoted to oversee global sports strategy — signaling that platform acquisitions double as executive pipelines.
If the pattern holds, mid-size podcast networks face a choice between selling to streaming platforms or competing against companies that own both the content and the ad tech serving it.
The trend: Streaming platforms are consolidating podcasting by acquiring networks and their founders outright, converting independent media companies into owned IP and internal leadership.
This morning we announced that @spotify is acquiring The Ringer. Couldn't be more excited to work with @eldsjal and his phenomenal team. More details to come down the road... but @ringer will remain @ringer in every respect. They appreciate what we do and they want us to be us.
If you don't want Spotify to take over podcasts for themselves, the best things you can do are: - Don't listen there. Most other podcast apps are better anyway! - Stop listening to any shows that become Spotify exclusives, and tell the creators why they lost you as a listener.
Spotify was already the biggest threat to podcasts. Now it's bigger. They're fragmenting podcasts into two worlds — Spotify's walled garden with exclusives and ad tracking, and the open ecosystem of everyone else — to co-opt “podcasts” to imply “on Spotify”. Divide and conquer. h…
I hope this ends up being long-term good news for @ringer, a website I like very much, and specifically for — just as importantly — everyone at @RingerUnion https://www.vox.com/...
Spotify has made 4 podcast acquisitions - Bill Simmons “the ringer,” Parcast, Gimlet, and Anchor. In their quest to be “the world's leading audio platform” I'm still shocked that they haven't acquired or built a meditation app. https://twitter.com/...
Reporting our Q4'19 results. Proud of all the work from Spotifiers around the world. More info here https://newsroom.spotify.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
The ad business being so small today (just under 12%) is one reason why I think the podcast growth is something to watch over there. It gives Spotify another prime place to sell ads, since these are worked into podcasts in multiple formats that don't exist in music streams. https…
Spotify's ad biz is growing, but it's still just under 12% of its total sales (premium subscriptions are much bigger). Interesting complement when you consider the companies out there that could stand to diversify from their mainly ad-based revenues. https://twitter.com/...
Podcasts, they're helping! “We continue to see exponential growth in podcast hours streamed (up approximately 200% Y/Y) and are now seeing clear indications that podcast usage is driving increased overall engagement and retention.” https://investors.spotify.com/ ...