What Spotify Sunsetting Chartable Says About Podcasting

Spotify, Chartable, and Podcasting

I first used Chartable in the early days of Trapital. Podcast data and analytics were historically limited and unreliable. Chartable was a breath of fresh air from the archaic data insights from hosting platforms. It isn’t perfect, but it does the job well for the small but mighty independent shows and networks that rely on it.

In February 2022, Spotify acquired Chartable for $93 million. The price seemed steep, even in a low interest rate environment, but Spotify’s advantage in podcasting was its data and analytics capabilities. It could apply its music streaming precision and machine learning to understand consumption patterns, offer stronger ad targeting to partners, and make smarter bets on the market. While Apple treated podcasting as an RSS feed with “downloads” that don’t always correlate with consumption, Spotify treated it like a data-driven billion-dollar business opportunity.

By acquiring Chartable, Spotify gained access to the listening patterns from non-Spotify platforms where people listen to new episodes. Spotify’s podcasting strategy hasn’t been cheap. It overspent on many of its deals, like a small market NBA team that had less appeal than other teams but still had plenty of cap room. But those big investments helped the company become the biggest player in podcasting.

Now, less than three years later, Chartable will be sunset at the end of 2024. It’s a sign of how much has changed in a short span. Spotify’s internal podcasting data is more representative of all podcast listenerships, which makes Chartable’s insights less additive. Instead, it's likely duplicative.

Big money still goes into podcasting today but goes to proven shows, not big-name celebrities who have never hosted a podcast. And now, there’s more competition from YouTube and its video podcasts.

The end of Chartable is likely bittersweet for its founders and loyal users, but let’s not treat this like a failed startup. This was a nine-figure exit that likely helped its parent company get stronger. For the parent company, its mission accomplished. For the acquired company, it was a sale for more money than any other company would pay at any other time in the market.

It reminds me of Apple’s acquisition of Beats by Dre. Apple wanted the Beats Music streaming service, which paved the way for Apple Music, which led to the sunsetting of Beats Music. But today, there are plenty of questions about Beats awkward fit within the Apple ecosystem. If Beats by Dre ever shuts down or spins off, there may be an outpouring of frustration. But the status quo of confusion regarding the brand’s place today isn’t necessarily the strongest signal for Beats’ future within Apple either.

Like Apple did in streaming and culture, Spotify spent billions to get ahead in podcasting. Some of it was well spent, some of it wasn’t. But on a scale of Megan Markle and Prince Harry’s Spotify catastrophe to the success of Spotify’s deal for The Joe Rogan Experience, the acquisition of Chartable likely falls somewhere in the middle.