Spotify is pulling 11 original podcasts produced by internal creative agencies Gimlet and Parcast, as well as laying off around 5% of the staff working for the agencies.
Over the next couple of months, Gimlet’s How to Save a Planet, Crime Show, and Every Little Thing, will be leaving Spotify. Parcast’s Medical Murders, Female Criminals, Crimes of Passion, Dictator, Mythology, Haunted Places, and Urban Legends, will also be exiting stage left.
In the second quarter of 2023, Spotify will also be binning off Parcast’s Horoscope Today.
In an internal note seen by TechCrunch, Spotify’s chief content officer, Dawn Ostroff, and Julie McNamara, head of US studios and video, wrote that Nicole Beemsterboer will become Gimlet’s new managing director. Liliana Kim, previously general manager of APM Studios, will be Parcast’s new managing director.
The timing is interesting, considering that Spotify has just launched The System: The Case Of Kevin Keith, an original true crime podcast voiced by none other than Kim Kardashian alongside veteran producer Lori Rothschild Ansaldi.
However, these cancellations are simply a drop in the ocean for Spotify. The platform has more than 500 original and exclusive podcasts produced by its four in-house studios, including Spotify Studios and The Ringer, as well as Parcast and Gimlet. The cancellations do not impact Spotify Studios or The Ringer.
Reached for comment by TechCrunch, Spotify said that it does not publicly comment on staffing changes.
