Sony Music Entertainment is adding chart-topping interview podcast How To Fail with Elizabeth Day to its podcast slate from January 2024, the company has announced.
The How To Fail podcast has been running independently since its successful launch in 2018, with Day going on to win Rising Star at the 2019 British Podcast Awards and chairing the seventh-annual BPAs ceremony this year. With this partnership, Sony Music will have exclusive distribution rights over the podcast and the company plans introduce a new subscription offering for fans through Apple Podcasts.
“I’m delighted to be joining the team at Sony Music. They already have such an impressive podcast roster and it feels like a great new home for How To Fail,” said Day. “I’ve been so impressed by their expertise, enthusiasm and kindness – as well as their long standing belief in the podcast.”
“It’s been the privilege of my life to grow How To Fail over the last five years and now I’m excited to embark on this new phase of evolution. I can promise every single How To Fail fan that this will still be the place where vulnerability can be shared, where resilience can be celebrated and where failure is simply an opportunity to ask a new question.”
To discuss her move to Sony Music Entertainment, the podcaster and writer will be on stage with the company at the IAB UK Podcast Upfronts this Thursday.
“Elizabeth Day has built How to Fail into a powerhouse podcast whose audience continues to grow each year,” said Sony Music Entertainment executive vice president and co-head of global podcasts Steve Ackerman. “We are thrilled for this premium show to be joining our global network and look forward to working with Elizabeth to create even more compelling content for her loyal listeners.”
As part of its growing podcast strategy, Sony Music Entertainment launched its podcast subscription channel ‘The Binge’ on Apple Podcasts and its website in 2022. The subscription offering allows listeners to access early episodes, bonus content, and ad-free listening on podcasts within that channel, including true crime podcast series Chameleon, The Just Enough Family, Witnessed, and more.
Another podcast from Sony Music that has a subscription offering is interview series High Low with EmRata, although an earlier report from Bloomberg claimed that the show was in danger of being quietly shut down.
According to an anonymous person close to the company, the podcast was struggling to sell advertising to brands, as they wanted to prioritise reaching US consumers. A spokesperson from Sony Music declined to comment about the situation when PodPod reached out and the High Low podcast seems to still be releasing new episodes on a regular basis, a month after the reports were made.
The report came amidst Sony Music Entertainment’s third round of layoffs in two years, which affected a “significant percentage of the [podcasting] division", a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
