Spotify laid off 15 employees in its podcast division in late March, affecting staff at both The Ringer and Spotify Studios. The cuts represent approximately 3% of the podcast group's headcount. [1] Among the casualties: New York, New York, the Ringer sports show hosted by John Jastremski, which was canceled as part of the restructuring. [2]

Spotify characterized the layoffs as an effort to reduce management layers and speed up decision-making, not a signal of strategic retreat from podcasting. [1] The distinction is cosmetic. In June 2025, Spotify cut 15 employees from the same division -- roughly 5% of the headcount at the time. [1] Two rounds of cuts in nine months, targeting the same teams, constitute a pattern regardless of what the company calls it.

The Ringer, which Spotify acquired from Bill Simmons in 2020 for a reported $250 million, has been a slow-motion case study in what happens when a tech company buys a media brand and discovers the margins do not scale. The layoffs continue a trajectory that has seen the original editorial identity diluted with each round of cuts.

Spotify's podcast ambitions were once valued at $900 million in acquisitions. Fifteen jobs at a time, those ambitions are being repriced.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles