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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.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill
Berkrot)
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