Spotify Technology, the world’s most popular music streaming service, today announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire both Gimlet Media Inc. the renowned independent producer of podcast content along with Anchor, the company leading the market for podcast creation, publishing, and monetization services.

With these acquisitions, Spotify is positioned to become both the premier producer of podcasts and the leading platform for podcast creators. Gimlet will bring to Spotify its best-in-class podcast studio with dedicated IP development, production and advertising capabilities. Anchor will bring its platform of tools for podcast creators and its established and rapidly growing creator base.

Daniel Ek, Spotify co-founder and CEO: "These acquisitions will meaningfully accelerate our path to becoming the world’s leading audio platform, give users around the world access to the best podcast content, and improve the quality of our listening experience as well as enhance the Spotify brand. We are proud to welcome Gimlet and Anchor to the Spotify team, and we look forward to what we will accomplish together."

In Ek's blog today he stated that "This opportunity starts with the next phase of growth in audio — podcasting. There are endless ways to tell stories that serve to entertain, to educate, to challenge, to inspire, or to bring us together and break down cultural barriers. The format is really evolving and while podcasting is still a relatively small business today, I see incredible growth potential for the space and for Spotify in particular.

We are building a platform that provides a meaningful opportunity for creators, excites and engages our users, and builds an even more robust business model for Spotify in an industry we believe will become significantly larger when you add Internet-level monetization to it.

Just as we’ve done with music, our work in podcasting will focus intensively on the curation and customization that users have come to expect from Spotify. We will offer better discovery, data, and monetization to creators. These acquisitions will meaningfully accelerate our path to becoming the world’s leading audio platform, give users around the world access to the best podcast content, and improve the quality of our listening experience while enhancing the Spotify brand."

Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber, co-founders of Gimlet Media: "Spotify is poised to become the largest audio platform in the world and we are excited for Gimlet’s award-winning podcasts to connect with new audiences around the world,” said “The medium of audio is uniquely great at creating human connection and understanding. We are thrilled that Gimlet is joining Spotify to do that at a global scale, on the platform and beyond."

Michael Mignano, CEO of Anchor: "We are incredibly excited to introduce Anchor's industry-best podcasting tools to Spotify's massive user base as we continue our journey, now with even greater resources. We look forward to continuing to empower creators all over the world to build an audience, generate revenue, and most importantly, have their voices heard.”

You could review the list of Gimlet Media's podcast shows here to give you a feel for what Spotify will be inheriting and promoting along with Anchor here.

At the current time iTunes Podcasts are dominant in the market and later this year Apple will be upping their content game with a new streaming video service that over time is to challenge Netflix.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.