Audio giant Spotify has announced that it has achieved a new milestone with over 100,000 video podcasts now available on its platform.
Spotify co-president and chief product and technology officer Gustav Söderström revealed at Spotify’s annual Stream On event this year that over 70,000 Spotify users added video to their podcasts as of March, and that number has grown by over 40% in just three months.
During Stream On, the company announced that it would be making its video podcast creation tools available to all podcast creators through its all-in-one podcast creator platform Spotify for Podcasters, with Anchor, and later Megaphone, being rolled into the platform.
“Users tell us they love being able to switch between watching and listening to your podcasts,” said Söderström at Stream On. “Any creator, regardless of the platform, can sign up to be among the first to get access to this feature and start expanding their audience.”
“We're excited about the possibilities this will bring as you can see podcasters including ones like Emma Chamberlain are already having lots of fun with it.”
Video podcasts were previously limited to creators that hosted their podcast on Spotify’s Anchor platform and was only available in specific markets but in November last year, it expanded to over 180 global markets. According to Spotify, publishing video podcasts on its platform is most popular in the US, UK, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany but it's also growing in popularity within other markets such as the Philippines.
Spotify also previously announced its new podcast strategy at the start of June this year which includes expanding its partnerships with more creators such as its most recent announcement at Cannes of a new original series with comedian and late night host Trevor Noah.
The audio giant has also been loosening its exclusivity over some of its shows to expand its audience and ad sales. Trevor Noah’s new podcast will be available on all platforms and Emma Chamberlain’s Anything Goes podcast is also now available on all platforms - although its video podcast episodes remain exclusive to Spotify. Other shows that are no longer exclusive to Spotify include originals from the studios it acquired, Gimlet and Parcast, which have now been combined into the preexisting Spotify Studios organisation as part of the new strategy.
