Spotify wants to turn its popular podcasts into movies and TV shows

By Allison Matyus September 24, 2020

It looks like Spotify wants to expand its original podcasts beyond just listening to them — it wants to turn them into TV shows and movies, too.

The music streaming app announced a first-look partnership with Chernin Entertainment on Thursday with the hopes of turning some of its more than 250 original podcast shows into viewable entertainment.

Chernin Entertainment is the production company behind movies like Ford v Ferrari and The Greatest Showman, and TV shows like New Girl and See. The company will work with Spotify to develop pitches on some of the more popular podcasts on the app.

Apple Music vs. Spotify — Getty

According to Spotify’s charts, podcasts like Call Her Daddy and My Favorite Murder are in the top 10 most popular podcasts on the app, so it’s likely Spotify will turn these more popular podcasts into TV shows or movies before others.

Podcasts transforming into TV shows or movies is nothing new, and some examples of successful podcasts that have done so are Dirty John, a true-crime podcast that became a Bravo show, and Comedy Bang! Bang! which started as a radio show in 2009 before debuting on IFC as a television series. The scripted-story podcast Homecoming also moved to Amazon Prime Video in 2018 and stars Julia Roberts.

A Spotify spokesperson told Digital Trends that they have a few podcasts in mind to turn into a TV show or movie, but plan to give them and their creators their own announcements in the weeks/months ahead.

Spotify has quickly become a significant force in the podcast space, especially with last year’s acquisition of podcast companies Gimlet Media and Anchor, and adding the ability for its listeners to create new playlists of podcasts. If you are a Spotify user, you should not miss out on the Premium version.

Perhaps one of the more popular podcasts available on the streaming platform is The Joe Rogan Experience. The first show on Spotify streamed earlier this month and will move exclusively to Spotify at the end of the year.

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Allison Matyus is a general news reporter at Digital Trends. She covers any and all tech news, including issues around social…

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