Brand name of market leader podcast hosting Anchor disappears and merges with Spotify

Anchor, market leader in podcast hosting, disappears as a brand name and merges with parent company Spotify. The Swedish music streaming company has announced this. Anchor has been owned by Spotify since 2019.

Anchor’s features will be available in Spotify for Podcasters, the company says according to Techcrunch. The integration comes as no surprise, as Anchor’s apps were already renamed just before the announcement.

Spotify acquired Anchor in 2019. Since then, the podcast host has existed as a separate app and service, but that will come to an end after four years. Anchor is the market leader in podcast hosting and competes with Podbean and Libsyn, among others.

In addition, Spotify announced that people who support a podcast via Patreon can also listen to episodes that are only for donors in the app. To this end, the two companies are working together. The integration also works in reverse, allowing listeners to support podcasters through Patreon right from the app.