In the ongoing podcast streaming wars, Pandora Monday took another step to level the listening field with competitors including Apple and Spotify.
Forbes reports Pandora users across its service tiers can now access all podcasts featured on the platform via Amazon Alexa-enabled devices including Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show. Using voice commands, users can access not only music but any podcast in the Pandora library, as well as request a specific episode, request an episode by topic and use hands-free playback controls.
The move follows by more than seven months similar launches by Spotify and Apple. In December both of those companies rolled out podcast integration with Alexa devices for all users in the U.S. Pandora parent SiriusXM in July purchased podcast company Stitcher from E.W. Scripps and offers users the same Alexa access ability.
It also further cements the importance of voice navigation as media companies vie for discovery and audience retention in the hotly competitive podcast market. Apple’s move to integrate podcasts with Alexa-enabled products was the first time the company opened this ability beyond its own HomePod device—a harbinger of the importance of broadening voice access capabilities.
Pandora has been making other recent moves to compete on equal footing in the podcast realm.
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