Spotify has been investing heavily in podcasts over the past couple of years, with quite a lot of high-profile exhibits now Spotify exclusives. It could appear the subsequent step within the technique could possibly be to roll out a subscription bundle solely for podcast content material.
As noticed by Selection’s Andrew Wallenstein and shared on Twitter, Spotify has been pushing out surveys to a few of its customers asking how they’d really feel about paying further for his or her podcasts – which in the mean time are free to take heed to inside Spotify, with adverts hooked up.
Throughout plans starting from $2.99 to $7.99 a month (that is about £2-6 or AU$4-11), Spotify suggests unique originals, bonus content material, early entry to episodes and the elimination of adverts could possibly be a few of the causes for customers to pay further.
That is under no circumstances affirmation {that a} podcast subscription bundle is on the way in which in fact, however it suggests Spotify is considering it – and the corporate is all the time going to be trying to squeeze extra money out of its userbase.
Planning for the longer term
In the intervening time, you’ll be able to take heed to podcasts via the Spotify apps whether or not or not you have signed up for a Premium subscription. Spotify makes use of a wise advert system to embed focused promoting inside podcasts, tailor-made for the people who find themselves listening to it.
Whereas that possibility is prone to keep in place, it may be that some listeners are blissful to pay further to eliminate these adverts and have an uninterrupted listening expertise. Based mostly on the survey. it seems as if another goodies can be thrown in too.
The fabric despatched out by Spotify means that the podcast subscription would stay separate to a music subscription, so the 2 would not be bundled collectively – however that may be one thing else that Spotify seems at additional down the road.
In a non-committal assertion to The Verge, Spotify stated that surveys might or might not level in the direction of future product plans, and that there was no information to share right now. It seems as if 2021 shall be one other attention-grabbing yr for streaming companies.