What to make of the Ostroff era? As several insiders noted when asked, Spotify has certainly accomplished its mission under her watch. In the fall, Spotify canceled some of its original programming for the first time, cutting 11 shows and letting go another 5 percent of its podcast-specific staff, who were also either laid off or reassigned. In early 2022, the company shuttered its founding podcast studio, known internally as Studio 4, with the affected employees either laid off or reassigned. Whatever the nomenclature, the financial realities of Spotify needing its big podcast bets to pay off have been true for some time now. Over the weekend, Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter both published stories framing the exit and the cuts as signaling a “pivot” away from, at the very least, the splashy way Spotify had been going about its podcast business in the past few years.Ĭall it a pivot, call it a withdrawal, call it something in between. Ostroff’s departure has sparked a wave of public rethinking about the state of the Swedish platform. They will now report to Alex Norström, Spotify’s chief freemium business officer (a.k.a. According to the official word, the exit was Ostroff’s decision, and in hindsight, it’s not hard to spot a link with last summer’s publicized restructuring that saw Parcast founder Max Cutler and former Paramount+ exec Julie McNamara elevated to top creative roles. Ostroff seemed to be playing the role as recently as December when she gave a broad interview to Variety on the state of the company’s content business. 1 Audio Platform” and a meaningful creative studio.
She flanked CEO Daniel Ek on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter in 2019, which talked up Spotify’s ambitions to become “the World’s No. Since joining the company in 2018 after stints as president of the CW Network and Condé Nast Entertainment, Ostroff has been firmly positioned as the face of Spotify’s efforts to evolve beyond the pesky economic constraints of the music streaming business. But the downsizing was attached to an associated development that was indeed surprising: Dawn Ostroff, Spotify’s chief content officer, is heading out the door too. Last week’s news that Spotify is cutting 6 percent of its workforce shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the kinda-maybe recessionary turbulence that has been hitting tech and media lately ( Vox Media, which owns New York Magazine, included). Welcome to a truly head-spinning time for the podcast business, one far removed from its so-called boom period. Photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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