Spotify’s new audiobook plan, which gives Premium subscribers 15 hours of audiobooks per month, will launch in Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand on April 9. The plan previously took effect in the US, the UK, and Australia last fall. Subscribers will have access to 250,000 titles. Payment terms for publishers and authors remain opaque.
Audio
News Corp CFO Discusses Audio and AI Partnerships
At the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet, and Telecom Conference yesterday, News Corp CFO Susan Panuccio addressed Harper Collins’ disappointing results last year, partnering with Spotify, and the use of AI technology. Panuccio attributed Harper’s 2023 sales, which fell 10 percent, to “the Amazon reset with their logistics” and inflationary pressures on manufacturing. Additionally, she said, “quite frankly, we didn’t have as good of frontlist as what we have had in other years.” Still, Harper has succeeded in cutting costs and is in good shape for the rest of the year, she said, with the 5 percent reduction in headcount, as […]
Distribution: Storytel and OverDrive
Storytel will make over 25,000 audiobook titles produced by company-owned publishers available to OverDrive’s library clients around the world. The companies note, “This agreement will offer access to an unparalleled and culturally diverse selection of tens of thousands of premium audiobooks in 20 languages.” Storytel head of catalog management expansion markets Stefanie Lamprinidi says in the announcement: “We are excited to be entering into this partnership with OverDrive to offer our vast and diverse language catalogs of high-quality audio stories, spanning the wide range of local and international titles to libraries, schools and their users around the world,” “We share […]
Spotify Launches Audiobook-Only Plan
Spotify has introduced a paid subscription plan focused on audiobooks in the US. For $9.99 per month, the Audiobooks Access Tier allows users to listen to 15 hours worth of audiobooks. Music and podcasts remain ad-supported, like a free account. (That’s one dollar per month less than Spotify’s Premium plan, which includes 15 hours of audiobooks along with ad-free music and other features.) “Spotify offers several subscription plans tailored to fit a variety of users’ preferences and will continue to invest in giving our listeners more options to cater to their unique needs,” the company said in a release.
Acquisitions: RBmedia
RBMedia has acquired Berrett-Koehler’s audiobook publishing business, in a multi-year exclusive deal that started at the beginning 2024. Berrett-Koehler titles released by RBmedia will be published under the company’s audiobook brand, Ascent Audio. Lesley Iura, VP of editorial for Berrett-Koehler Publishers, said in a release, “We are excited to partner with RBmedia to serve and expand the audience for our authors’ works. As an industry leader and partner with other top business publishers, they have a deep understanding of the markets we serve. We believe that leveraging RBmedia’s unique abilities in spoken audio will help amplify the voices of our […]
Audible to Lay Off 5 Percent of Employees
On Thursday, Audible announced to employees that it would eliminate 5 percent of its workforce. The company employs an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 staffers worldwide, so this move will likely impact approximately 100 people. The company declined to confirm which departments are affected. In a memo to staff, provided to PL by an Audible spokesperson, CEO Bob Carrigan noted that the company had a “strong year” in 2023 and “business is in good shape.” “However, to position us for continued success in the coming year and into the future, given the increasingly challenging landscape we face, we have to take […]