Spotify’s latest acquisition is about making money off radio shows turned into podcasts
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify continues to beef up its audio product arsenal. Today, it announced the acquisition of Whooshkaa, a nearly six-year-old Australian company focused on helping radio broadcasters monetize, edit, and distribute their shows as podcasts. Spotify says some radio broadcasters, like the Australian Radio Network, already rely on its podcast hosting platform Megaphone, and this Whooshkaa radio technology will be integrated into it. The selling price was not disclosed.
Radio networks will be able to prepare shows for publishing by capturing live broadcasts and using the Whooshkaa tech to edit and remove ads to make room for podcast-only spots. From there, Megaphone can host the shows, and Spotify can help the shows monetize by encouraging...