Blog: Audiobooks - Page 2

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

New audiobook pricing gives Spotify the best of both worlds

Cover image for New audiobook pricing gives Spotify the best of both worlds

Rutger Rosenborg

6 Mar 2024

In late 2023, Spotify slowly started rolling out audiobooks to Premium subscribers in select markets . In contrast with Spotify’s unlimited supply of music, Premium subscribers were allotted 15 hours (roughly two audiobook equivalents, according to Spotify) of audiobook listening per month.

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What indie book publishers can gain from audiobooks

Cover image for What indie book publishers can gain from audiobooks

Rutger Rosenborg

22 Feb 2024

Music streaming

In the music industry, three major labels generate the lion’s share of revenue: Universal, Sony, and Warner. In the book publishing industry, the “big five” publishers dominate: Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins.

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Audiobooks’ Latin explosion — a new front in the streaming wars?

Cover image for Audiobooks’ Latin explosion — a new front in the streaming wars?

Rutger Rosenborg

2 Feb 2024

As streaming and demographic shifts bring a second Latin explosion to the music industry, audiobooks are gearing up to follow suit. In a January 2024 press release , popular subscription-based audio platform Podimo announced a new strategic alliance with Mexico media hub Troop.

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Audiobooks enter their streaming era, but will it pay off?

Cover image for Audiobooks enter their streaming era, but will it pay off?

Rutger Rosenborg

3 Jan 2024

Most people agree that streaming saved the recorded music industry, but that only happened because demonetised digital consumption helped bring it to the brink of death in the first place. The internet has also helped gut print media over the last two decades.

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Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Cover image for Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Mark Mulligan

4 Oct 2023

Streaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the latest step in a journey that has seen streaming become the 21stcentury’s take on radio.

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Spotify’s Q2 podcast financials: Things may get worse before they get better

Cover image for Spotify’s Q2 podcast financials: Things may get worse before they get better

Annie Langston

2 Aug 2023

Spotify’s Q2 earnings are a mixed bag for its podcast business. On one hand, monthly active users (MAUs) grew to 551 million, with 10 million new premium subscribers (bringing that total to 220 million), while podcast advertising revenue rose by 30% year-over-year.

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YouTube’s podcast push raises the question: what actually is a podcast?

Cover image for YouTube’s podcast push raises the question: what actually is a podcast?

Annie Langston

18 May 2023

Podcast videos have been all the rage as of late, with YouTube officially launching its podcast vertical — although Bloomberg reports that NPR, Slate, and The New York Times have struggled to kickstart their YouTube presence.

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Spotify podcast earnings: Moving beyond the investment phase

Cover image for Spotify podcast earnings: Moving beyond the investment phase

Annie Langston

3 May 2023

Spotify’s Q1 2023 earnings revealed its growing userbase — now at 515 million monthly active users (MAUs) — and some key insights into its podcast vertical. First quarter revenue fell short of expectations, although podcast ad revenue, mostly driven by originals and exclusives, grew 20% year-over-year (YoY).

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How AI narration could transform Apple Books’ creator economy

Cover image for How AI narration could transform Apple Books’ creator economy

Annie Langston

11 Jan 2023

artificial intelligence

It is a new year for the audio world and Apple is attempting to expand audiobook creation. Apple Books launched its “digital narration” feature which allows authors to publish audiobook versions of their work using AI-generated voices, and is specifically geared towards independent authors and small publishers.

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How Apple’s commission is reconfiguring Spotify’s audiobook strategy

Cover image for How Apple’s commission is reconfiguring Spotify’s audiobook strategy

Annie Langston

23 Nov 2022

Spotify’s audiobook rollout has hit a major roadblock. Spotify debuted its service in September as a la carte , where users purchased audiobooks individually. In order to avoid Apple’s 30% commission on in-app purchases for apps listed in its App Store, users were directed to purchase audiobooks online, after which the audiobook would appear in the app.

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Spotify launches audiobooks in the US – but you have to buy them

Cover image for Spotify launches audiobooks in the US – but you have to buy them

Annie Langston

22 Sep 2022

Spotify has officially launched its audiobook vertical for US listeners. Spotify previewed this vertical at its Investor Day in June, in addition to announcing its purchase of Findaway , an audiobook distributor.

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Spotify Investor Day eyes podcast creators and audiobooks — but what about the listeners?

Cover image for Spotify Investor Day eyes podcast creators and audiobooks — but what about the listeners?

Annie Langston

21 Jun 2022

Spotify Investor Day revolved around a core message – there is more audio to come. While its audio investments began with major acquisitions in podcast technology and exclusive content deals, focusing on creators will be a crucial step moving forward.

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Spotify’s Car Thing has radio listening in its sights

Cover image for Spotify’s Car Thing has radio listening in its sights

Annie Langston

10 Mar 2022

The adoption of streaming into our audio experiences has created an industry-disrupting practice that broke away from physical forms of consumption. The hardware we once relied on has been seamlessly replaced by streaming platforms.

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Climate crisis awareness is entwined with entertainment behaviour

Cover image for Climate crisis awareness is entwined with entertainment behaviour

Hanna Kahlert

2 Feb 2022

Media and Marketing

Audience Insight

Despite the barrage of high-profile news items featuring so far in 2022, the climate crisis remains the high-stakes backdrop to our global future. MIDiA Research recently fielded a survey asking about consumers’ climate-conscious behaviours, cross-segmented against their normal entertainment proclivities – and some of the findings are surprising.

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Lockdown & Dragons: Fantasy proves the fandom effect

Cover image for Lockdown & Dragons: Fantasy proves the fandom effect

Hanna Kahlert

8 Apr 2021

Media and Marketing

With vaccine rollouts gaining momentum, the post-COVID attention crunch is looming large for the digital entertainment propositions which have all experienced booms over lockdown. The competition is on – making it more essential than ever to understand the trends behind shifting consumer behaviour and sentiment drivers, as ‘in real life’ (IRL) activities return and budget crunches force audiences to make new spending choices.

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The COVID bounce and the coming attention recession

Cover image for The COVID bounce and the coming attention recession

Mark Mulligan

19 Feb 2021

media consumption

entertainment consumption

2020 was by any measure a unique year in modern times. While the societal impact of the pandemic was, and continues to be, horrific, for the entertainment industries it was a year of plenty. At the start of the pandemic, MIDiA Research estimated that there would be an extra 15% of consumption time for the average working consumer.

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