Eight months after it acquired US talk radio company Stitcher, France’s Deezer has added 20,000 podcasts to its platform.
The on-demand shows now available cover news, entertainment, comedy and sports.
Major podcasts on the platform include Slate, This American Life, Financial Times, Monocle, Europe 1, RFI, Radio Nova, Télérama and Sveriges Radio.
Deezer listeners in France, UK and Sweden can listen to the shows.
“Deezer is pairing the best news and entertainment with the largest music catalogue in the world to become the leading service for on demand music, radio and podcasts,” said Hans-Holger Albrecht, CEO of Deezer (pictured).
“This move signals our commitment to leading innovation, with a vision of becoming a single destination for audio, tailor-made for each listener. We’ll continue to roll out new programming in additional regions throughout the year.”
Radio programming from Stitcher, the radio and podcast app acquired by Deezer last year, has been fully integrated as part of the new launch.
At last count, Deezer had clocked up 16m monthly users, with 6m paying subscribers.
Its new CEO, Hans-Holger Albrecht, has encouraged artists to show patience when it comes to getting paid from services such as his and Spotify.
“The point the artists and we all have to respect is we’re just at the beginning of a huge potential market,” he said in a new interview with AP.
“To draw a conclusion, ‘I don’t have any money today,’ doesn’t mean you don’t get any money tomorrow. The worldwide penetration is 2 to 3 percent, in the U.S. I think it’s 3 percent. If it would grow to let’s say 8 to 9 percent, that’s big, big, big upside potential, for us and the artist and the labels as well.Music Business Worldwide
