Spotify, Deezer, and other Apple critics are having a field day today. This morning, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit over how Apple controls the smartphone market. This comes in addition to Apple’s woes in Europe, where it is mitigating compliance with the Digital Markets Act and has been ordered to pay a $2 billion fine following a complaint made by Spotify.

The DOJ complaint, which was joined by attorneys general and district attorneys from 16 other states, alleges that “Apple undermines apps, products, and services that would otherwise make users less reliant on the iPhone, promote interoperability, and lower costs for consumers and developers.”

The filing points to a number of practices that allow it to maintain control over its smartphone and app ecosystem, including blocking apps that use cloud streaming and preventing the development of other digital wallets. It also calls out one of the main grievances of tech companies, including (and especially) Spotify: the 30 percent fee on in-app purchases. “As Apple exercised its control of app distribution and app creation, Apple slowed its own iPhone innovation and extracted more revenue and profit from its existing customers through subscriptions, advertising, and cloud services,” the filing reads.

The Coalition for App Fairness, a group of developers that includes Spotify, Epic Games, and Deezer, applauded the move by the DOJ. “With today’s announcement, the Department of Justice is taking a strong stand against Apple’s stranglehold over the mobile app ecosystem, which stifles competition and hurts American consumers and developers alike,” the coalition said in a statement.

Spotify, which has been particularly aggressive in advocating for more regulation of Apple, has not yet officially commented on the case outside of the CAF statement. But Avery Gardiner, director of global competition policy at Spotify, posted on X that “the DOJ case makes it clear that Apple harms the developers qand creators who are hard at work to build the very best products and services for consumers… While this DOJ action will take time to work its way through the courts, the next step is with Congress…”

Cadence13 is being rebranded as “Audacy Podcasts”

Happy to say this is a reorg without (further) layoffs. Audacy is consolidating podcast studios Cadence13 and 2400Sports into one entity that is being called Audacy Podcasts. Audacy spokesperson David Heim tells Hot Pod that there will be no operational changes and that the studios still fall under the purview of chief digital officer J.D. Crowley and head of podcasts Jenna Weiss-Berman.

Like nearly every other big audio company, Audacy has gone through rounds of layoffs, including at Cadence13 last summer and at Pineapple Street Studios in January. Additionally, Audacy filed for bankruptcy early this year and is going through a total corporate restructuring. 

The move also seems, for now, to quell the idea that Audacy is shopping Cadence13 around. Axios reported in fall of 2022 that Audacy had hired bankers to explore a sale of the studio for quick cash. Instead, Cadence13 is being further integrated into Audacy’s brand.

Pineapple Street Studios will not be part of Audacy Podcasts and is holding on to its branding. The studio lost a quarter of its staff during the layoff, mostly those who focused on original content. Its business is more squarely focused on providing production and creative services for other media brands like HBO and Amazon. 

Behold, the secret Spotify numbers

Shout out to Ashley Carman for this incredible find: You can read more about it at Bloomberg, but Spotify has a new (somewhat hidden) feature that shows how many followers a show has. The shows with the top three followers are Call Her Daddy (3.7 million), TED Talks Daily (5 million), and The Joe Rogan Experience (a mind-boggling 14.5 million). Followers don’t necessarily equate to regular listeners, as we have learned the hard way with the iOS 17 update, but it does give us an idea of how big an individual show is. 

One that caught my eye so far: Stolen has 280,000 followers. That is certainly not as big as Spotify’s celebrity chat shows, but it’s not small, either (for comparison, Fresh Air has 271,000 followers on the platform). Between that and a Pulitzer, you’d think it would get renewed. 

Any you found surprising? Feel free to reach out at ariel.shapiro@theverge.com.