Spotify and Chernin Entertainment Announce Partnership to Adapt Podcasts For TV and Movies

 The intersection of audio and video continues and intensifies with the announcement that Spotify and Chernin Entertainment completed a multi-year partnership to adapt podcast content for television, film and digital video. The deal - which will provide Chernin with access to more than 250 Spotify original series from Spotify Studios, Gimlet, Parcast, and The Ringer - accelerates growth in Spotify’s audio business with new content being introduced to the platform on a daily basis. 

In forging this new content partnership, Spotify will have the opportunity to continue to expand upon a library of audio content in an all-new medium, both on the large and small screen. Preceding this partnership, Spotify’s existing work in the film and television space includes the adaption of nearly a dozen projects including Homecoming (Amazon Prime Video), and forthcoming projects like The Two Princes (HBO Max) and The Horror of Dolores Roach (Amazon Prime Video). 

As one of the industry’s most acclaimed producers of film and television programming, Chernin Entertainment - whose creative skills have led to critical and commercial success across digital, film, and TV mediums (Ford v Ferrari, The Planet of the Apes, The Greatest Showman, Hidden Figures, New Girl) - is uniquely positioned to curate, develop and adapt premium, proven content from countless stories with Spotify’s audio arsenal. Upcoming collaborations from the two companies are already in the works.

The Chernin deal comes as Spotify’s audio business sees significant growth driven by a torrent of new content being introduced to the platform. Chernin Entertainment, whose creative skills have led to critical and commercial success across digital, film, and TV mediums is uniquely positioned to curate, develop and adapt premium, proven content from countless stories with Spotify’s audio arsenal.

“At Spotify, we believe that the extraordinary growth of audio will continue to attract the world’s great creators and make podcasts a premier destination for original IP,” said Spotify Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff. “As we continue to expand our content ambitions, we are thrilled to collaborate with Peter Chernin, who, along with his exceptional team, are the perfect partners to help us share these stories with audiences across mediums and around the world. Together, we can usher in a new era for podcasts as source material.”

Said Chernin: “Audio is by far the fastest-growing medium in the entertainment business, and with over 250 originals and thousands of hours of content, Spotify has one of the largest libraries of unattached, IP that exists in the world today and that library is being added to daily. This treasure trove of content plus the acceleration of new voices and stories provides an enormous opportunity to transform these addictive stories and IP into content for the screen.”

So far, podcasts that have been translated into TV or film projects have been greeted with success. Podcasts such as Dirty John on Bravo and Homecoming on Amazon Prime were proven rating winners.

Even individual episodes of podcasts have been translated into the big screen. Reply All relates stories of people, modern life, and how technology plays a role. In episode 86, hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman weaved the story of Dr. John Brinkley, a man who scammed his way to the top using one of the newest technologies available to him: radio. Annapurna Pictures purchased the film rights and Robert Downey Jr. is attached to star, while Richard Linklater is set to direct.

Episodes of This American Life have also famously inspired works such as Lulu Wang's heart-wrenching The Farewell and Netflix's powerful Unbelievable.

According to podcast consultant George Witt, "Podcasts enable TV and film producers to transform the drama and emotion endemic to the podcast audio experience into compelling video."