Spotify, known as a music and podcast streaming service, is making a bigger leap into video, reports The L-A Times.
Seven podcasts available on Spotify, including “Higher Learning With Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay,” “Fantasy Footballers” and “Book of Basketball 2.0,” will show footage of podcasters recording their programs.
For years, many podcasters have uploaded video versions of their programs primarily on YouTube.
Now Spotify wants to claw back a share of eyeballs and imagine itself as the destination for all podcast content, including video footage. Previously, Spotify only streamed podcast audio.
The Swedish streaming giant has been snapping up deals with celebrities and popular podcasters for exclusive shows.
A deal announced in May with podcaster Joe Rogan was worth roughly $100 million for an exclusive video and audio podcast, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named because the person was not authorized to comment on it. Video podcasts will help draw a larger audience and ad dollars to Spotify’s platform, analysts said.
“Video is still the top medium to drive engagement,” said Eunice Shin, a partner at consultancy Prophet. “Spotify wants to own and control engagement on their platform — which drives numbers for this revenue model.”
Users on Tuesday will be able to see the videos when they press “play” on the podcast episode.
Rachel Lindsay, co-host of “Higher Learning,” a podcast that discusses Black culture, politics and sports, said her fans have been craving this feature. “Higher Learning” is produced by the Ringer, which is owned by Spotify. In the past, the show would be uploaded to the Ringer’s YouTube channel, which has 284,000 subscribers, but now the video version will also be available on Spotify.
Spotify has more than 286 million monthly users on its platform. The company started out as a music streaming service but has been steadily making more investments in the podcast space.
No comments:
Post a Comment