Spotify Vs. YouTube: Who Will Win the Podcasting Wars?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Spotify recently unveiled plans to upgrade its video content, putting it in direct competition with YouTube.
“Today marks the biggest update to podcasts on Spotify ever — including a new monetization program for video podcasts, improved analytics and audience growth tools, new ways to get your podcast discovered on Spotify, and an exciting evolution of the name and brand of our creator platform,” an update on Spotify’s blog reads.
This new monetization plan will allow video creators to be paid based on user engagement, i.e. how much and how long users watch their videos. Spotify also announced it will no longer play ads during videos for Spotify Premium users.
“By giving you guys, the creators, another path to monetization beyond ads, we’re freeing you up to do what you like doing, which is creating,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told content creators at the company’s recent Now Playing event.
In the post on Spotify’s blog, Maya Prohovnik, Spotify’s Vice President of Podcast Product, explained, “In general, we have been steadily investing in video because of its growing popularity on our platform, and we’ll always focus on things that we believe will make Spotify an even more powerful destination for creators and listeners.”
These new tools will be available to use starting Jan. 2 in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
It’s no surprise Spotify is making big changes. A recent report from Edison Research found that YouTube is outperforming other streaming services when it comes to podcasts.
“31% of weekly podcast listeners ages 13 and up claim [YouTube] is the service they use most,” CBS reported. “Spotify holds 27% of the audience, and Apple has just 15[%].”
Sean Burch, tech reporter for The Wrap, explained, “People want to have video with their podcasts, and we actually know this because Spotify’s internal research…showed that two-thirds of their listeners prefer to have podcasts with video.”
“[Spotify is] clearly seeing that YouTube is pulling listeners away when it comes to podcasts, and they want to keep those listeners in house, if they can,” he concluded.
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