Amazon Music is making big plans in the podcast field. The company has announced that it’s acquiring Art19, a major podcast hosting and monetization platform for an undisclosed sum. This means Amazon will now have a hand in hosting podcasters’ shows as well as selling ads against them because Art19 operates an ad marketplace that targets and inserts ads into programming. An Amazon Music spokesperson says nothing will immediately change on the Art19 platform.

This is a major step for Amazon as it looks to take on a bigger role in the podcasting world. Amazon Music only started offering podcasts in September last year, as did Audible in October. But in the time since, Amazon Music has acquired Wondery, one of the last major independent podcast networks. The current plans to acquire Art19 gives Amazon Music a more influential role in the industry. Not only will it make content through Wondery and distribute shows through its app, but now, Amazon can host those podcasts, as well as third parties’, and sell ads against them. This gives Amazon even more data about what’s happening both inside and outside its app. The company is already selling audio ads to its marketers.
Spotify is also dealing in the same way as the company started out making content-based acquisitions, like that of Gimlet Media and Parcast, but then acquired Megaphone, an Art19 competitor. Spotify has also focused on bringing a proprietary ad-serving technology to the platform, called Streaming Ad Insertion, in order to encourage podcasters to move over to the hosting service and take advantage of its ad marketplace. Other companies in the space have also taken a similar position. iHeartMedia acquired Triton Digital, and SXM Media acquired Midroll, an ad-serving marketplace and platform. Now the podcasting business has turned in to a new level of marketing with selling the ads and the future will see a tough competition from the podcasters and the marketers will have a wide variety of choice.