Report: Amazon is Merging Wondery into Audible, Amazon Music

Bloomberg reports that Amazon is closing the Wondery podcast network and will roll much of its content into Audible. 110 employees at Wondery will be let go as part of this consolidation.

Wondery was founded in 2016 and quickly became one of the top podcast networks and publishers on the strength of shows like American History Tellers, Dr. Death, and Dirty John. Over time, it expanded its content base and pushed into TV adaptations of its hit shows and subscription services with Wondery+. Then Amazon acquired the company at the end of 2020 for about $300 million to counter other big podcast network acquisitions like Serial and The Ringer. It had been operating independently since then.

Amazon hasn’t yet announced the changes coming to Wondery, but the Bloomberg report is based on an internal memo describing a reorganization of the business. As noted, about 110 Wondery employees will lose their jobs, including CEO Jen Sargent. Wondery podcasts will be split between Audible, the audiobook business also owned by Amazon, and a new creator services team that will make “personality-driven” shows like New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce.

Wondery isn’t going away, exactly. The Wondery brand will survive and be used on some of these shows going forward. The Wondery+ team is moving to Audible. The Wondery studio will merge with Audible. Wondery’s ads and sponsorships team will form a new team that will work with Amazon Music and the new creator services team. And the standalone Wondery+ app will continue forward, at least for now.

The problem for Wondery and Amazon is that podcasts are shifting to a video focus, while Wondery has stuck exclusively with audio. Spotify and YouTube have been more successful with the transition to video, it seems.

“The podcast landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years,” Amazon vice president Steve Boom writes in the memo seen by Bloomberg, explaining the consolidation. “The rise of video has also blurred the lines on what it means to be a podcast creator.”

I am a big fan of Wondery’s content and subscribed to Wondery+ for at least a year. If you go back and look at my annual podcast write-ups–2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, most recently–you can see that the network comes up regularly. And I currently subscribe to Wondery shows like American Story Tellers and American Scandal.