Spotify Challenges Apple With New Subscriptions Podcasting Platform
Spotify Challenges Apple With New Subscriptions Podcasting Platform
BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, APR 27, 2021 - 03:45 PM
Days after Apple announced plans to launch its first
subscription podcasting platform, Spotify - after making a splash last year
when it recruited Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian and a handful of other big name
stars to its podcasting platform - is planning a similar paid platform that
will charge creators a much smaller slice of revenues.
Spotify unveiled
"Anchor", its paid podcast platform, in a post on
Tuesday where it touted the "massive opportunity" for content
creators to monetize their work. "Today, we’re rolling out a paid
subscription platform for podcasters that gives them maximized revenue, wide
reach, and discoverability. The program begins rolling out in the U.S. today
and will expand internationally in the coming months," the company said in
a statement.
In comments to the Verge,
Mike Mignano, head of podcaster mission at Spotify, said that the model will
"explore ways for creators to connect deeper with their subscribers, so
you can anticipate us to be sharing more in the space soon."
NPR is already planning to use Spotify as its partner for its ad-free subscription podcasts (the network produces some of the most popular podcasts in the US market).
The platform will compete with content monetization tools like Patreon, which
is currently a favorite among podcasters, including the creators of "Chapo
Trap House", the popular political comedy show with a left-wing slant,
which is the most lucrative account on Patreon.
Mignano argued that creators will be better off with Spotify,
which will take no cut of revenue at first and only a small cut starting in
2023 and that having paid content built into Spotify could help creators grow
their paid audience more quickly thanks to the apps powerful recommendation
algorithm. If people search for a type of specific show, a subscription podcast
could show up and gain a paid follower. Mignano also suggested that Spotify
could curate suggestions of shows that people might want to pay to hear. He
also says, because this can all go through Anchor, the subscriptions shouldn’t
require extra work. "I view this as additive and in no way as an
additional, or burdensome, step on behalf of the creator," he says.
While this is all well and good, we recently explored whether
artists who signed exclusivity deals with Spotify
(like Joe Rogan) are seeing their relevance fade by depriving
users of other platforms of their content. What's more, despite promises that
Spotify wouldn't act as an editor, the company has been caught removing dozens
of episodes of the "Joe Rogan Experience". Almost all of these
removed episodes featured "controversial" conservatives like Milo
Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones and Gavin McInnes.
It begs the question: is ceding even more power and control over
one of the fastest-growing mediums (podcasting) to a company which has already
betrayed some of its biggest creators really a good idea?
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/spotify-challenges-apple-new-subcription-podcasting-platform
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