The logo for Wondery is displayed on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Sept. 29, 2020.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon is laying off roughly 110 employees in its Wondery podcast division and the head of the group is leaving as part of a broader reshuffling of the company’s audio unit.
In a Monday note to staffers, Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president of audio, Twitch and games, said the company is consolidating some Wondery units under its Audible audiobook and podcasting division. Wondery CEO Jen Sargent is also stepping down from her role, Boom said.
“These changes will not only better align our teams as they work to take advantage of the strategic opportunities ahead but, even more crucially, will ensure we have the right structure in place to deliver the very best experience to creators, customers and advertisers,” Boom wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “Unfortunately, these changes also include some role reductions, and we have notified those employees this morning.”
Bloomberg was first to report on the job cuts.
The move comes nearly five years after Amazon acquired Wondery as part of a push to expand its catalog of original audio content. The podcasting company made a name for itself with hit shows such as “Dirty John” and “Dr. Death.”
More recently, Wondery signed several lucrative licensing deals with Jason and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, along with Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert.”
Amazon is streamlining “how Wondery further integrates” into the company by separating the teams that oversee its narrative podcasts from those developing “creator-led shows,” Boom wrote.
The narrative podcasting unit will consolidate under Audible, and creator-led content will move to a new unit within Boom’s organization in Amazon called “creator services,” he wrote.
Amazon’s audio pursuits face a heightened challenge from the growing popularity of video podcasts on Alphabet‘s YouTube, which now hosts an increasing number of shows.
Video shows require different discovery, growth and monetization strategies than “audio-first, narrative series,” Boom wrote in the memo to Amazon staffers.
“The podcast landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years,” Boom said.
