Do you still have a development deal with Audible? –

Iნ obsessed with mirandaListeners hear a series of late night phone calls between a mystery woman and a Hollywood man. Using only her voice, a woman, known as Miranda, captivates and seduces them into spreading rumors over the phone and revealing secrets that would otherwise not be told to a complete stranger.

This is the story that first spread vanity fairAs Rachel Brosnahan describes it, it was “adapted to audio”. Through his production group Scrap Paper Pictures, he is executive producer of Brosnahan and stars as the title Miranda in an adaptation of the Audible Original story, alongside actors such as Josh Groban and Milo Ventimilia. The project was also the “first attack on audio” for Brosnahan and Scrap Paper Pictures, he says, and Audible emerged as an ideal partner. “It might scare someone to say, ‘We want to tell a story exclusively through a series of phone calls, and hopefully in eight episodes you can create something that engages the listener,’” Brosnahan said. That the Audible team “loved us and we made that very clear.”

While podcasts and the audio space are dominated by conversations on Spotify, iHeartMedia or Apple, the Amazon-owned audio company has become the most talented house in Hollywood, trying to invade the podcast space with premium narrative projects, in fiction and non-fiction. Stay away from the more traditional interview or podcasts that often feature film and television talent.

Over the past two years, Audible has signed multi-year deals with stellar companies like Carrie Washington, Isa Ray, George Clooney, Lena White, Laura Dern, Quinn Latifah, LeBron James and Kevin Hart. Many partnerships are the first creative audio record for talent who have traditionally found success in film and television.

Studio and content operations are led by Rachel Giaza, Executive Vice President and US Chief Content Officer, and Zola Masharik, Head of Audible Studios. Ghiazza joined Audible in 2019 on Spotify after more than five years, and Mashariki in 2021 after a two-year career in film and television at Searchlight Pictures (Fox Searchlight Days), BET Networks and only mercy Production company One Community (formerly known as Good Films).

The combination of Ghiazza and Mashariki’s honesty in digital media and entertainment has created a successful stage for talent seeking internal support and creative freedom to tackle unusual projects. “They are very selective in terms of what they want to produce.” [but] They don’t interfere with anything,” says author James Patterson, who has a multi-project development deal with Audible on the audio project sheet alone.

In late April, seated at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, Giaza and Masharik emphasize that they are watching a long game with talent. “We’re not necessarily trying to make a one-size-fits-all,” says Ghiazza of Audible’s approach to trading. “We are committed to being partners for a long time.”

Audible isn’t a newcomer to the audio space, making a name for itself in audiobooks in the late 90s and early 2000s. But it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that the service began to seriously pursue podcasts through the original series produced by Audible. As competitors like Spotify have been making their own exciting announcements, citing the likes of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, Audible has developed dozens of talented early ideas to strengthen its own library of fiction and nonfiction audio stories. Meanwhile, sister companies Amazon Music and Wondery have started to claim exclusive licensing and endorsement deals with genuine criminal hits like my favorite murder And talk shows not written like SmartLess s how i built.

Audible’s agreed-upon push for premium audio storytelling comes only during a period of massive growth in the podcast industry. A recent report by the Office of Interactive Advertising found that podcast revenue reached $1.4 billion in 2021, a number that is likely to triple to $4.2 billion over the next three years.

But Audible’s business model relies heavily on subscriptions and a la carte shopping. In addition to high-end subscriptions that give users credit to purchase audiobooks or other titles outside Audible’s existing library for $14.95 a month, the company has launched a cheaper subscription model, Audible Plus, that gives subscribers access to exclusive audio originals. Audiobooks for $7.95 per month. The company has also used a free ad-supported model in India, although there are no immediate plans to do the same in the US.

Sometimes the best way to show what your brand is all about is to just let people hear it, which is why we think [subscription] “Models in different ways,” said Giatsa.

The company, which was acquired by Amazon for $300 million in 2008, talks a lot about its subscription numbers, with speakers only noting that the service has “millions” of global subscribers, making it difficult to compare access to other subscriptions to the service. . . . -Building audio and podcast platforms like Spotify, which has 182 million global paid subscribers, and iHeartMedia, a radio giant with stations in 160 US markets and growing podcast ambitions. But because of its largely subscription-based model, most shows created as a result of Audible’s development and early deals with top talent existed beyond the paywall, which could hamper the show’s ability to become popular with a wider audience. wide.

“Access to stories is very important to me,” says Brosnahan. But at the same time Audible has such a strong and broad customer base, so we thought [The Miranda Obsession] We’re going to reach an audience that we’re looking forward to, I think we’re very, very confident that Audible subscribers are going to enjoy it.”

Ghiazza says Audible is looking at distribution by project, meaning there are times when the show could be widely distributed on other platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. But the distribution plan has been part of the conversation from the start, allowing developers to collaborate with Audible on the best approach to reaching an audience, says Ghiazza. For example, Brosnahan obsessed with miranda Only available to Audible subscribers; summer in clayIt can be streamed for free on Spotify and Apple, in addition to the Audible platform.

“Because I’ve never done an audio before, it looks like this Very important Having partners who understand the space and help us creatively. Kerry Washington, whose Simpson Street Productions has three design deals with Audible, which it says has decided to work with the company. “It’s a feeling that we have trusted partners that really support us and are investing in us and the stories we tell.”

Mashariki says Audible can also allow creatives to realize interesting projects in a way that is impossible through a traditional studio model. “Audio is much cheaper, [so] We can take a lot more risks and say, “Let’s try this and see” because we’re building for a future that’s unknown, so we really have to have things that we may not know exactly what we are, but that we love. That and believe it.”

Audible originals cost anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 to produce, while others can be as high as several million if talent costs and production costs are factored in, says Ghiazza—two execs point out that the lower end of this range allows this. Creatives with less experience working with Audible. It also doesn’t hurt that the average production cycle is around four months for a project, adds Mashariki, allowing Audible to run experiments more regularly compared to TV or movie projects.

“We don’t need anyone to prove they did it 15 times before they came to us,” Masharik said. “In fact, we can reach out to experts in their field to help them with what they’re doing and give them a try.”

A version of this story first appeared in the May 17 issue of The Gossipify. Click here to subscribe.