Dag en Nacht Media, one of the largest podcast companies in the Netherlands, is being acquired by the Danish Podimo. Podcast service Podimo announced at the beginning of February that it would enter the Dutch market with a podcast app and can best be compared with a streaming service such as Netflix: subscribers get access to a bundle of programs for a fixed amount per month.
Podimo was already active in its home country of Denmark, where it made a name for itself with true crime podcasts, among other things, and is also available in Germany, Norway and Spain. The company has raised approximately $125 million in investments to date. Dag en Nacht Media was founded in 2016 by journalists Anne Janssens and Tim de Gier and produces about sixty podcasts with 25 employees, including Man Man Man, All History Ever and The Red Lantern† The acquisition of Day and Night Media is the largest investment Podimo has made in a foreign market to date.
De Gier and Janssens sat around the table with various parties last year. De Gier: “Many publishers were interested in our advertising model, we were looking for an investor who wanted to spend money on our podcasts.” Podimo, described by De Gier as a “friendly Netflix” with paid and free content, fulfilled that wish: at Podimo a number of titles from Day and Night Media will disappear behind a paywall, in return they will invest in new podcasts. De Gier: “We’ve wanted to make narrative podcasts for some time, but that requires more editing work and therefore more money. I therefore see paying for podcasts as something positive: it makes a substantive step possible.” Podimo will announce at the launch of the app in April which titles from Day and Night Media will only be available to Podimo subscribers from now on.
According to Alexander Klöpping, advisor to Podimo, Podimo wants to distinguish itself from other streamers with this acquisition. The podcast market serves millions of listeners, he says, “and they won’t get anywhere if Podimo just says: from now on you pay for your favorite podcast.” According to him, the idea is to invest in the supply and thus make an important contribution to a rapidly growing market.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 30, 2022