Spotify is hopeful that more of its original podcasts can become TV show and movies with the help of Chernin Entertainment.
Chernin Entertainment and Spotify have announced they have entered into a multi-year partnership that could see more of Spotify’s original podcasts turning into TV shows and movies for listeners.
The agreement between the film & television production company, Chernin Entertainment and the music streaming provider, Spotify, specifies that Chernin can identify and of Spotify’s original podcast – of which there are over 250 – into film and television adaptation. The podcasts total thousands of hours of potential content creation.
These two companies were already working together due to Spotify’s subsidiary Gimlet Media collaborating with Pineapple Street Media on an adaptation on The Clearing, a popular podcast series that provides information on Edward Wayne Edwards, a known serial killer.
The efforts of Gimlet Media and Pineapple Street Media will continue as this agreement allows further deals and transformations.
Chernin Entertainment is primarily known for movies such as The Greatest Showman, Hidden Figures, The Planet of the Apes trilogy, and Ford v Ferrari as well as TV shows including Truth Be Told, See, and New Girl.
This year, after losing a deal with 20th Century Fox due to Disney’s acquisition of the company’s feature film operations, the production company signed a first-look deal with Netflix for feature films.
Alongside a variety of other changes within the entertainment industry, Chernin Entertainment has been on the search for a new source of TV, movie and digital content creation.
A significant change within the entertainment industry that has helped Chernin Entertainment is the growth in podcasting, and the ways in which podcasts can be transformed into new, original content within film and television.
Spotify is heavily involved in the podcasting market – its acquisitions of Gimlet Media and The Ringer and a variety of podcasting tools demonstrate how invested the company is in this format.
In a statement, Chernin Entertainment Chairman and CEO Peter Chernin stated, “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.” He continues, “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.”
While both Spotify and Chernin believe the number of adaptations will be large, they have not made an agreement for any certain number of projects.
The companies have not released any specific details within their deal – including any revenue-sharing information, or any commitments towards promotion or marketing. Spotify revealed that these details will be developed for each individual project.
However, it was announced that Spotify can still work with other companies on projects that Chernin does not want to participate in.
At the centre of their agreement is Spotify’s 250 original podcast – with new releases happening daily. Despite this focus, Spotify has stated that there may be room for collaborations between the two companies outside of these shows.
They want to discover what shows will translate well into film and television.
The companies will be working together to develop an idea of which programs will translate well into film and television adaptations. Spotify has stated that they believe that their diverse content and data analysis capabilities will help them achieve this goal.
Spotify’s podcast library includes a large variety of genres, which is one of the main instigators of their deal with Chernin.
The companies will not be revealing any of their projects and their timelines just yet, but it is to be expected that it will be at least 2021 before any of their projects will be debuted.
Dawn Ostroff, Spotify Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer stated “At Spotify, we believe that the extraordinary growth of audio will continue to attract the world’s creators and make podcasts a premier destination for original IP.
“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.”
