(Bloomberg) — Facebook’s interest in podcasts is fading, just a year after it started.
Last April, during a hot market for audio, Facebook launched Live Audio Rooms, short stories called Soundbites and podcasts for US users. The company signed agreements with creators and sponsored one of the largest US conferences in the industry: Podcast Movements. Facebook product managers even appeared on the long-running industry show “New Media Show” to encourage podcasters to join the platform.
But today, the company is emphasizing other initiatives in talks with podcast partners, including events in the metaverse and online shopping, according to industry executives who work with the platform. They asked not to be identified because their conversations with Facebook have not been made public.
Facebook’s decreased interest in podcasts is a disappointment to some in the growing industry because the scale of its platform offers a large potential audience and, with it, the potential for more ad revenue. Instead, parent company Meta Platforms Inc. is turning its attention to the metaverse and short video projects amid growing competition and a precipitous drop in its share price.
A Facebook spokesperson said the company is still working on podcasts even as it speeds up work on priority features like Reels and Feed. The company is seeing good engagement with its audio products, according to the spokesperson, who declined to provide details.
audiomania
Facebook’s move to audio, in some ways, felt inevitable. It did so during a time of audio mania last year, when live audio platform Clubhouse was valued at $4 billion and every tech company wanted to copy its product. Spotify Technology SA had a market value of more than $50 billion a year ago, double what it is now, and Amazon.com Inc. was inking major audio deals. So when Facebook said it was introducing audio experiences, no one was completely surprised.
To get into the space, the company has also explored starting a training program to attract creators to the platform. Steph Colbourn, founder and CEO of Editaudio, said a group that works with Facebook floated the idea of paying her to train about 15 podcasters from diverse backgrounds on how to create their shows and use the platform, but the idea never came to fruition. .
Then, after sponsoring Podcast Movement in August, Facebook didn’t sponsor its sequel in March and didn’t send a single person to attend, according to the list of attendees at the event.
At the same time, some initial Live Audio Rooms partners are no longer hosting conversations and their agreements were not renewed. For example, civil rights activist DeRay McKesson signed an initial six-episode deal, which he says went well. But his contract has not been renewed.
new priorities
In another sign of shifting priorities, a prominent podcast product manager at Facebook, Irena Lam, appears to have transitioned into a music-oriented role, according to a LinkedIn page.
But even Facebook’s limited podcasting efforts have been a source of growth for some content providers. TYT Network, which produces political programming, said Facebook is its second most popular audio platform after Apple Podcasts. The network added podcast content to Facebook in September, and since then the platform has contributed “hundreds of thousands of additional monthly listens,” according to chief marketing officer Praveen Singh. That’s double the audience TYT gets on Spotify, he said.
Nota Original:
Facebook Is Pulling Back From Its Foray Into Podcasting
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