Amazon is still landing podcast deals in hopes of claiming an edge over rivals like Apple and Spotify. The internet firm has struck a deal with NPR to stream Guy Raz’s popular How I Built This podcast one week early on both Amazon Music and Wondery. As with earlier deals, episodes will stream ad-free if you’ve subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited or Wondery+.
Wondery will also have the rights to YouTube-based video simulcasts as well as ad sales. NPR will still control radio releases, which will continue as usual.
The strategy is familiar — ideally, fans of the business-focused podcast will switch to Amazon’s platforms to listen as soon as possible, and will ideally turn into paying subscribers. The approach is less aggressive than Spotify’s emphasis on completely exclusive podcasts, but could give Amazon an edge over Apple and others that rarely or never strike special deals.
For NPR, this also represents the latest phase of a recent podcast push that includes subscriber-only perks. The public broadcaster is eager to boost its funding from online content, and pacts like Amazon’s could play an important role in that growth.
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