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The earnings report for music and podcast streaming platform Spotify is in, and it seems like the company has a lot riding on its podcast business. It has signed some pretty huge deals since the start of the year, including “Call Her Daddy” and perhaps the biggest podcast on the planet “The Joe Rogan Experience”. Thanks to all these major bets, podcast streaming on the platform has seen a 30% increase year-on-year in terms of listening, with total hours consumed going up by a whopping 95%.

Podcasts seem to have become a major pillar of Spotify’s success, as the revenue coming in through this route went up by a mind-bogging 627%, smashing expectations. The company has attributed this growth to a similar, three digit year-on-year growth noted by its in-house studios, which include Spotify Studios, The Ringer, Gimlet, and Parcast, as well as the exclusive streaming deals it has forged with Higher Ground Studios and The Joe Rogan Experience.

CEO Daniel Ek explained, “The continued outperformance is currently limited only by the availability of our inventory, which is something we’re actively solving for. The days of our ad business accounting for less than 10% of our total revenue are behind us, and going forward, I expect ads to be a substantial part of our revenue mix.”

Another contributing factor probably is the paid podcast subscriptions that Spotify came up with, back in April. In order to bring the same to reality, the firm had teamed up with podcast hosting service Anchor, which it had acquired two years ago. Now, creators can choose to require their listeners to pay a subscription fee for gaining access to exclusive member-only content. Moreover, the Audience Network marketplace too, has tripled in size.
At the same time however, Spotify seems to be cutting back on its efforts in terms of music streaming, in its eagerness to lure more and more podcasters. Musical artists have set up a whole movement in response to this unfair treatment, which is titled Justice at Spotify.
Proponents of the movement claim that only around $0.0038 go to an artist per stream of a song, and so, a single song needs to be streamed 263 times in order to them to make a single dollar. While this might seem like no big deal for the more established musicians, the same cannot be said for the smaller and lesser known artists.
To this effect, Daniel Ek says that live concerts might be the answer to the worries of musicians, as it can help them increase their revenue. The feature has been previously been tested by partnering with The Black Keys.
However, this too, might not really be feasible for smaller artists who might not really have many people listen to them. Moreover, it seems even more tough when one considers hhow the company lost out on its target of monthly active users in the previous quarter.
Ek, nevertheless, remains optimistic about his suggestion, saying, “Live is a meaningful thing for many of our creators, and it’s something that we’re excited about. We want to provide as many opportunities for creators … to turn a listen into a fan, and turn fans into super fans, and increase the monetization for those creators.”