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Audible, owned by Amazon, has recently added 100,000 podcasts to its catalog. There are free podcasts like This American Life and Pod saves America. The good part is that listeners do not require any subscription to get these shows. Additionally, Audible has launched a subscription plan called Audible Plus with affordable monthly payments. The only catch is that subscribers do not get credits to download audio books that are not available in the free catalog.

Audible, which is owned by Amazon, launched a new subscription plan called Audible Plus in August, which gives listeners access to Audible’s original audio content at a cheaper monthly cost. The catch is that they don’t receive credits to download audiobooks that aren’t already free in Audible’s catalog. With these additional, freely available shows, Audible is bulking up its podcast offerings and making its app a place where its listeners can fulfill all their podcast needs, other than other services’ exclusive shows.

From The Verge

Nevertheless, Amazon is off to a great start with almost 11,000 original content pieces. Audible also has a podcast development program that, according to the Director, Kelley Sullivan, hopes to share new and different voices with the world. She says the program aims at partnering with next-gen audio creators and bring their stories to life. This is not all of Amazon’s plan to conquer the podcast world; it has recently bought a podcasting startup, Wondery, which since 2016 has produced some very popular podcasts like “Dirty John.” This startup counts over 10 million listeners each month.

As part of the deal, Wondery will join Amazon Music, the e-commerce giant’s music streaming business. Amazon Music in September added podcasts to its platform, looking to carve out a share of the increasingly competitive podcasting market, in which Spotify, Apple and others have gained ground.

From CNBC