Spotify shows how the live audio boom has gone bust
by Ariel Shapiro from The Verge - All Posts on (#6AG46)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge
This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.
Lots of news to start off the week. Let's get right into it: Spotify Live gets the ax, the Obamas land another podcast deal, and iHeart signs a top wellness podcast.
Spotify Live is shutting down, and what remains of live audio is sparse
In the latest sign that live audio is well and truly on its way out, Music Ally reports that Spotify is shutting down its Spotify Live app. On the app, which still has a handful of chat rooms going, users get a notification saying that the service will go away at the end of the month.
After a period of experimentation and learnings around how Spotify users interact with live audio, we've made the...