Spotify has been the king of audio for sometime now and has increasingly ramped up its dominance in the world of podcasts with several acquisitions and upgrades to it’s interface. Following the announcement of their exclusive license with Joe Rogan, we learned that the music and podcast streaming platform was about to step into the video realm. As part of the Spotify deal announced in May, Joe Rogan’s podcast episodes are set to be streamed both in audio and video on the platform, and now ahead of it’s launch we are seeing their new streaming modes roll out to other podcasts worldwide.
Spotify has unveiled the first version of video podcast with select podcasts, in all markets where podcasts are supported will be able to listen to or watch those podcasts as the feature rolls out. The initial shows launching video episodes are Book of Basketball 2.0, Fantasy Footballers, The Misfits Podcast, H3 Podcast, The Morning Toast, Higher Learning with Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay and The Rooster Teeth Podcast.
To start watching a video Podcast on Spotify, you’ll just need to press play on your desktop or mobile app. The creator-made videos will start automatically and sync immediately with your audio feed. So if you’re multitasking between apps or want to lock your device during the episode to save battery or jump in the car, your audio will continue to play in the background with no interruptions. As usual listeners will still be able to download the audio version to their mobile devices to listen to shows on the go or offline.
While the introduction of the new medium to Spotify marks a new direction, having played around with it there is certainly a different experience without the ability for users to add or view comments. As such it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect them add engagement functionality to the experience in the future. However with Spotify increasing it’s offering, they can help podcasts to reach even more listeners in a place where they likely already listen to podcasts.
This new addition sets Spotify up to not just compete with Apple, but also YouTube on podcasting. Having already snapped up the platform’s most watched show — The Joe Rogan Experience — we can expect to see more shows move over exclusively. However the majority of podcasters will more than likely continue uploading their shows to YouTube and earn profits from advertising.
Now that video’s are becoming part of Spotify’s eco-system in a more simple way, we can only predict that they’ll bring Music Video’s to the platform in the near future, taking another hit at YouTube’s domination on video content.