While Spotify has grown to be a podcasting powerhouse, owing to acquisitions such as Gimlet Media, Parcast, and The Ringer, the company has decided to shutter its own in-house studio.

The organization formally known as Spotify Studios has informed staff that their last day will be January 21. It was formerly known as Studio 4 because it was the fourth studio in the company's portfolio. The Verge was the first to break the news.

Studio 4 employed approximately a dozen people and produced series such as Dissect and Chapo: Kingpin on Trial. The majority of employees received two months' severance compensation and were urged to apply for available positions at the Stockholm, Sweden-based tech corporation, while others were reassigned to other Spotify positions. According to the Verge, Julie McNamara, the former CBS All Access executive who joined the company as head of U.S. studios and video in September, acknowledged the layoffs in an email to workers. She said that the downtime will allow the company to "move faster and make more significant accomplishments" while also allowing for "more effective collaboration across our organization."

Spotify, which has a market capitalization of more than $44 billion, is still expanding, having increased its employment by more than 30% last year to more than 6,550 personnel. The firm has landed a number of notable names in the increasingly competitive podcast sector, including Joe Rogan and Barak and Michelle Obama. It has 381 million users in 184 global areas as of September last year, over half of whom were paying subscribers. On February 2, the company aims to release financial results for the fourth quarter of 2021.