LOS ANGELES - Former U.S. President Barack
Obama and his wife Michelle entered the booming podcast business
on Thursday, announcing a multi-year partnership with streaming
service Spotify to produce a series of exclusive
podcasts.
Under the partnership, the Obamas will "develop, produce and
lend their voices" to select podcasts that will be distributed
worldwide, Spotify and the Obamas production company, Higher
Ground, said in a joint statement.
The announcement follows a multi-year agreement between
Higher Ground and Netflix that was announced in 2018 in
which the former president and former first lady will produce
films, documentaries and other series.
Spotify Technology SA, the world's largest music streaming
service with more than 217 million monthly active users, will
distribute the podcasts to audiences across the globe, the
statement said.
Podcasts have become big business in the last five years
with subjects ranging from true crime like "Dirty John" to
current affairs ("The Daily"), politics ("Pod Save America") and
comedy ("2 Dope Queens").
The number of Americans listening to podcasts surged 35% in
the last three years as content has expanded, according to a
2018 study by consumer data company statista.com.
Spotify purchased three podcast companies this year, and has
said it has earmarked up to $500 million for podcast
acquisitions.
Thursday's statement did not include details of any topics
that the Obama podcasts would cover, nor when they would start
to be available to listeners.
Barack Obama said in a statement he believes podcasts "offer
an extraordinary opportunity to foster productive dialogue, make
people smile and make people think and, hopefully, bring us all
a little closer together.”
Spotify Chief Content Officer Dawn Ostroff described Barack
and Michelle Obama as "two of the world's most important voices"
in a statement on Thursday.