Spotify is reportedly nearing the release of its own podcast subscription platform to rival the recently announced new Apple Podcasts app.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify will allow users to pay their favourite podcast creators to access extra features like Apple’s Podcasts app. However, Spotify won’t take a cut of the profits. The story also states that Spotify will send listeners on Apple devices to a webpage to pay for a subscription to prevent the tech giant from taking a cut.
What sets this apart from Apple’s new Podcasts platform is Spotify plans to make it free for podcasters to add a paid tier to its app. On the other hand, Apple is charging creators $25 per year to host paid content and is taking a 30-15 percent cut of the profit. While I’m sure people will accuse Spotify of copying Apple, the report says Spotify’s subscription service is almost ready to release. If that timeline is accurate, I’d assume this is something the company has been working on for a while.
Both Apple and Spotify are pulling ahead in the podcast space to create the best place to get exclusive content. Spotify has attempted to grow its presence in the podcast space over the last few years by buying podcasts and making them exclusive to the platform. While the streaming audio app’s podcast audience has been growing, it’s not as fast as it likely hoped.
That said, a lot of podcast creators likely won’t mind paying Apple $25 per year to earn more money from their content since the revenue stream wasn’t available before.
Overall, it’s great Spotify continues to maintain feature parity with Apple since it will make it easier for creators to upload and release the same content to their audiences across multiple platforms.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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