Amazon disassembled its podcast company Wondery on Monday, announcing a reorganization that reflects the industry’s broader upheaval in recent years.
Wondery’s audio-only podcasts — such as the true-crime hits “Dr. Death” and “Dirty John” — will be now be overseen by Audible, the audiobook arm of Amazon, and earn money primarily through subscriptions.
But its splashy video shows, like the Kelce brothers’ “New Heights” and Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert,” will operate within a new Amazon division called Creator Services. Amazon will continue selling advertising for these hosts, but will also explore other revenue streams, such as e-commerce.
Wondery will still exist, housed under Creator Services, although its chief executive, Jen Sargent, is departing the company, according to a staff memo sent Monday morning by Steve Boom, vice president of audio, Twitch and games at Amazon.
Ms. Sargent, who has been chief executive since 2021, will not be replaced, according to a spokeswoman. In total, more than 100 jobs were eliminated, although some Wondery employees were reassigned.
Podcasting emerged in the 2000s, propelled by radio veterans devoted to audio and narrative storytelling. But today, many of the most popular and lucrative podcasts are video shows, hosted by chatty personalities with large social media followings.
Amazon is betting that these two categories require different business models. “They didn’t make sense to have under a single roof anymore,” Mr. Boom said in a phone interview on Monday.
For narrative shows, “the person telling the story isn’t the product,” Mr. Boom said. “The story is the product.”
But video podcasts, with their “borderline explosive growth,” he continued, are the opposite: It’s all about the talent, their fan bases and their franchise potential.
“It’s about building an audience and then finding lots of different ways to monetize that audience,” Mr. Boom said. (Last year, for example, the Wondery children’s science podcast “Wow in the World” began selling educational toys.)
Mr. Boom emphasized Wondery was not being shuttered. “It’s not that Wondery is gone, it’s that we’re really focusing Wondery in one direction,” he said.
That direction underscores Amazon’s interest in building a stable of stars to feed its many platforms. Their video podcasts will be streamed on Prime Video; their wares will be sold on Amazon’s website; they will appear at company marketing events and in ad campaigns.
Wondery, which was founded in 2016 and purchased by Amazon in 2021, has already been pursuing this strategy.
In March, it acquired a basketball podcast from LeBron James to complement Amazon’s nascent billion-dollar streaming agreement with the National Basketball Association. Three months later, Mr. James starred in the company’s Prime Day commercials.
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
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