Spotify ends 11 original podcasts and fires 5% of staff

San Francisco: Music streaming platform Spotify is shutting down 11 of its original podcasts including How to Save a Planet, Crime show, and Medical Murders. This will also result in laying off around 5% of its employees.

A company spokesperson told The Verge that some of the staff who worked in its in-house studios will be reassigned to new projects. Another podcast, Horoscope Today, will be killed in the second quarter of 2023. Over the next few months, in-house studio Gimlet's podcasts Every Little Thing, Female Criminals, Crimes of Passion, Dictator, Mythology, Haunted Places, and Urban Legends will air their last episodes.

This will be the first time Spotify is making a group cancellation. The leading audio streaming company has been making several big changes. In June, a report said that it is reducing new hiring by at least 25% due to the changes the tech industry is facing in connection with volatile global conditions.

It is speculated that Spotify is letting go of duds to make room for other original and exclusive programmes like Batman Unburied, Call Her Daddy, and The System: The Case of Kevin Keith. The platform now has over 500 Q&E podcasts produced by four in-house studios - Spotify Studios, The Ringer, Parcast, and Gimlet.

Spotify's chief financial officer Paul Vogel said at an investors' presentation that the management is "clearly aware of the increasing uncertainty regarding the global economy." Nicole Beemsterboer will become Gimlet's new managing director and Liliana Kim will take charge as the new managing director of Parcast, reported TechCrunch.

The Swedish platform has over 433 million monthly active users. It had over 6,600 employees at the end of 2021. Last month, Spotify launched a catalogue of 300,000 audiobooks.