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Creators in five countries will now be able to publish and monetise video podcasts on Spotify.
Spotify is expanding its options for podcasters, allowing all creators in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to publish video podcasts.
The streaming giant first began testing video podcasts on a limited basis last year through its Anchor platform. The feature is now being rolled out in these five countries, with plans to launch in more countries in the future.
“We’ve found that podcasters love having the option to accompany their audio with visual components, and fans love having the opportunity to more deeply connect with the content,” Spotify said in a blogpost yesterday (21 April).
“Visual interactions allow fans to get to know their favourite podcast hosts even better, and allow creators to connect with their audiences in a much deeper way.”
Spotify shared a number of new features to help video creators. Its existing podcast subscriptions tool has been expanded for video content, allowing creators to monetise content and create their own subscription models. The streaming company said there are more monetisation features planned for the future.
At the beginning of this year, Spotify partnered with Stripe to expand its podcast subscription service with new payment infrastructure in a bid to help podcasters monetise their work.
“With this latest expansion, we’re continuing to make video podcasting a great experience for creators – empowering them to reach new global audiences, own how they monetise their content, and interact with fans in new ways,” the company added.
The streaming giant is also partnering with remote recording platform Riverside. Spotify said this will let creators record and publish video content for free using the remote platform, “with a quick distribution path to Spotify via Anchor”.
Other features that were announced include embeddable video support, video analytics for creators and interactive features such as polls.
Spotify has made considerable investments in its podcast business to attract users beyond its core music streaming offering. This includes a deal said to be worth around $200m for the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which faced controversy earlier this year due to concerns raised about misinformation and language around race.
In February, the streaming giant announced the acquisitions of podcast advertising measurement service Podsights and podcast analytics platform Chartable. Spotify said these deals were made to help advance podcast measurement for advertisers and insights for publishers.
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