Spotify, the world’s most popular audio streaming service, has announced its plans to expand further into video podcasts. The company has invested over $1 billion in podcast assets and is now seeking to consolidate its efforts and focus on more video content, featuring some of the biggest names in the industry.
At the company’s recent Stream On event in Los Angeles, head of global podcast studios Julie McNamara unveiled a range of new video podcasts aimed at appealing to younger audiences. These included video episodes of Distractable, hosted by popular gaming YouTuber Markiplier, and Forbidden Fruits with Julia Fox, which will be going video for its second season. Both of these shows are set to be exclusive to the Spotify platform.
McNamara explained that video podcasting is one of the fastest-growing areas of podcasting, and the company expects this growth to continue. “Right now, we have 70,000 video creators on the platform and with a lot more on the way,” she said. Video podcasts are better suited to Spotify’s new homepage, which takes inspiration from TikTok and allows users to scroll through clips of music, podcasts, and audiobooks.
To encourage more video podcasts, Spotify for Podcasters is rolling out a feature that was previously reserved for Anchor users. Now anyone who signs up for Spotify for Podcasters will soon be able to publish video podcasts. The company is also looking to integrate Anchor, the DIY podcast publisher it acquired in 2019, into Spotify for Podcasters. The Anchor app has already been rebranded as Spotify for Podcasters on both Apple and Google’s app stores, and a help page has been redirected to Spotify for Podcasters.
