Spotify is now shipping NPR‘s podcasts worldwide.
The streaming-audio company inked a deal with NPR to distribute 26 podcasts — including “NPR News Hour,” “Planet Money,” “Car Talk” and “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” — outside the U.S. A few NPR shows that are available on Spotify U.S. aren’t part of the international-distribution pact, including most notably “Fresh Air” hosted by Terry Gross.
NPR’s podcast catalog is already available on Spotify in the U.S., where shows from the public broadcaster have been available since 2018.
Starting Wednesday (Dec. 16), Spotify is distributing NPR shows in most of the 92 markets in its footprint, with the exception of several countries where the content is restricted, including Singapore, Turkey, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Spotify said it isn’t selling ads for the NPR podcasts.
Listeners outside the U.S. in most regions can stream the following NPR podcasts on Spotify: “How I Built This with Guy Raz,” “Louder Than a Riot,” “Radio Ambulante,” “Wow in the World,” “Code Switch,” “Consider This From NPR,” “NPR News Now,” “Planet Money,” “The NPR Politics Podcast,” “Short Wave,” “TED Radio Hour,” “Throughline,” “Up First,” “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”, “Life Kit,” “Embedded,” “Invisibilia,” “Rough Translation,” “Believed,” “Car Talk,” “White Lies,” “1A,” “Ask Me Another,” “Here and Now,” “No Compromise” and “StoryCorps.”
Popular on Variety
Spotify also revealed the top five most popular NPR podcasts on its platform to date: “NPR News Now,” “TED Radio Hour,” “Up First,” “Short Wave” and “Planet Money.”
It’s yet another move by Spotify to hook podcast listeners by pulling premium content into the platform. Just yesterday, the company announced a multiyear deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for a slate of original podcasts.
As of the third quarter of 2020, Spotify had 1.9 million podcasts on the platform, up from 500,000 in the year-earlier period. The company said 22% of its 320 million total monthly active users — about 70 million — listened to podcast content in Q3, up from around 63 million (21% of MAUs) in Q2 2020.
