The leading music-streaming service Spotify could soon launch podcast subscriptions as Apple recently announced a new podcast subscription service of its own.
Spotify Is Mulling Podcast Subscriptions
This development comes as Apple preps to launch paid podcast subscriptions sometime in May 2021. According to The Wall Street Journal, Spotify will soon launch its new feature as part of the continuing expansion of podcast services on its platform.
"With Apple making its move into subscription, there is this platform war emerging," said Josh Lindgren, head of Creative Artists Agency’s podcast department. Spotify's content head Dawn Ostroff says renewed interest in podcasting legitimizes its own moves in the space.
We saw the opportunity before anybody else did, and we’ve been at it significantly longer than anyone else.
Spotify has been doubling down on podcasts for some time now. In 2020, the company introduced video podcasts for both free and paid Premium account. And having recently expanded its partnership with Facebook, users can now listen to shared Spotify podcasts right in the News Feed on Facebook for iOS and Android without switching apps.
Apple Podcasts vs. Spotify
Spotify will not charge podcast creators a fee to sell their shows. By comparison, Apple charges a $20/year membership fee to be part of the Apple Podcasters Program.
Also, Spotify won't be taking a revenue cut from podcast creators on these sales as Apple does, the write-up claims. Contrast this to Apple's approach which retains 30% of subscription fees. As a matter of fact, Spotify will let creators set their own pricing.
Wait, so Spotify will be actually paying this fee to Apple? In a word, no. Similar to Netflix and other streaming players, attempting to purchase a podcast subscription with Spotify's iPhone app will take you to the Spotify website to complete the transaction.
Spotify does the same thing for its existing subscriptions to avoid paying Apple's in-app purchase fee. Of course, this is the same company that, along with a bunch of like-minded players, is taking Apple to court over alleged anticompetitive behavior with the App Store.
Lockdowns Have Boosted Podcasts
Podcasting has seen a significant rise in popularity during the current pandemic and the lockdown measures around the world associated with it. As more and more people increasingly find themselves working from home, listening to one's favorite podcasts has become one of the best ways to unwind and decompress after a long, busy day.
Podcasts will bring in more than $1 billion in the US ad revenue this year along.
Taking that into account, podcast subscriptions on Spotify could become a viable new revenue stream as the company takes on Apple, which helped popularize podcasting by adding support for audio podcasts to the iPod and the now-defunct iTunes software.
"Subscribe" vs. "Follow"
Curiously, major companies in this space like Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Audible, and others have stopped using the verb "subscribe" to denote the process of receiving podcasts. This has happened because "subscribe" has been commonly used by almost all media-streaming services to convey the process of purchasing a paid subscription to a piece of content.
Switching from "subscribe" to "follow" for free podcasts clears up any confusion customers might have because the same terminology is commonly used on social media services such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and so forth.