How Amazon Is Building a Bigger Podcast Business—With Oprah's Help

Amazon has signed a deal to distribute Oprah Winfrey's podcast exclusively across its services, including Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Fire TV. The arrangement, managed through Amazon's Wondery subsidiary, marks the latest move in Amazon's effort to expand podcasts as a feature of its broader entertainment ecosystem rather than as a standalone product.

Under the deal, The Oprah Podcast now airs as both audio and video content across Amazon's platforms. Starting in July, the show began releasing two episodes per week—up from its original schedule—after first launching on YouTube. Wondery handles distribution and advertising sales on Oprah's behalf.

How Amazon Entered the Podcast Business

Amazon Music started offering podcasts in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan in September 2020, making them available for free to all subscription tiers. The company has since invested in original shows hosted by celebrities like DJ Khaled, Will Smith, and Becky G, and has acquired exclusive content such as the crime podcast Disgraceland.

The Oprah deal is different. Rather than creating a new show from scratch, Amazon is taking an established podcast and moving it into its ecosystem. Wondery—which Amazon acquired years earlier for its production and distribution expertise—handles the logistics. This approach lets Amazon add prestige content without having to develop it from the ground up.

What the Podcast Actually Contains

The Oprah Podcast features long-form interviews with authors and prominent figures. Recent episodes have covered topics ranging from book club selections—like conversations around Claire Keegan's novel "Small Things Like These"—to broader cultural and news topics. The show maintains a partnership with Starbucks for some of its book club segments.

One key feature: the content now appears as video on Prime Video and Fire TV, not just as audio. That's a shift from traditional podcasts, which are usually audio-only. It means viewers can watch interviews on their TV or phone, or listen while driving. This multi-format approach matters because people consume podcasts in different ways depending on what they're doing.

Why Amazon Wants Your Podcast

The broader context here is that Amazon sees podcasts as a way to keep people inside its ecosystem—Prime membership, video streaming, music, smart TV devices, and so on. A reader or listener already paying for Prime Video or Amazon Music might sample a podcast without needing to download another app or create another account.

This strategy mirrors what Netflix did two decades ago: Netflix didn't invent TV shows, but it acquired exclusive rights to content in order to make its service more valuable than traditional cable. Amazon is applying the same logic, except it's doing it across multiple services at once rather than one streaming app.

Spotify has pursued a similar strategy, buying exclusive podcasts to differentiate itself from competitors. Apple, by contrast, built podcasting tools into iOS and lets creators distribute freely. Amazon's approach sits somewhere in the middle—it wants exclusive deals to strengthen its bundle, but it's not trying to become a podcast-only platform.

The Broader Picture

Oprah's career offers an interesting case study in how established media figures adapt to distribution changes. Her book club started as a TV segment in 1996. A few years ago, she signed a deal with Apple to develop original shows. Now she's on Amazon, with a podcast that runs twice weekly and reaches people through multiple formats.

The Oprah deal also comes after Oprah's company settled a trademark dispute in 2023 over the "Oprahdemics" podcast name. That legal clarity may have made it easier for both sides to negotiate the exclusive distribution arrangement.

The move signals something worth keeping in mind: as video podcasts become more popular across different age groups, the ability to claim exclusive relationships with established creators becomes more valuable for streaming platforms. It's not just about the content itself—it's about keeping subscribers engaged and less likely to cancel their memberships.