Spotify ramps up podcast offering in Australia
Spotify has unveiled a slate of original podcast content as it aims to become more than just a music streaming platform.
The announcement:
Spotify, the world’s most popular global audio streaming subscription service has today laid out its initial plans for podcasts in Australia, unveiling a slate of original and exclusive content, as well as the return of Spotify Sound Up for 2020.
- Spotify Original – Search Engine Sex: A sex and relationship podcast that is on a mission to answer the most searched sex questions on the internet, hosted by Sound Up alumni Rowdie Walden.
- Spotify Exclusive – Generation Betoota: From satirical news website, The Betoota Advocate, comes a weekly youth news podcast featuring stories young people care about, using the hip language they’re fluent in.
- Spotify Exclusive – VICE Extremes Season 2: The stories of people who have lived through the far ends of human experience, with each episode featuring one story from one person, retold and unpacked with guidance by host Julian Morgans.
- Spotify Sound Up 2020 : Applications open today for Spotify’s accelerator program, dedicated to lifting up and amplifying the voices of the First Nations community in Australia.
This initial line-up marks the first of many anticipated exclusive and original announcements to come, as Spotify, who has disrupted and transformed the global music market, is once again leading the charge in its efforts to become the world’s largest audio network.
In just under two years, Spotify has become the second largest platform for podcasts worldwide and now, with an unprecedented rise in podcast popularity and talent locally, it is focused on, and investing in, growing the opportunities in Australia.
The local market is experiencing steady growth, with 22% of the Australian population listening to a podcast each month in 2019, compared to 18% in 2018 and 17% in 2017. The number of weekly Australian podcast listeners has increased by 50% over the last three years, with 48% of podcast listeners in Australia also tuning into the radio each week, creating an immediate opportunity for new content.
Furthermore, Australians listened to 11.06 hours of online audio per week in 2019, up by over an hour since 2018, with podcasts becoming an increasingly important part of the online audio experience. The number of Spotify users streaming podcasts has also increased by over 11% in the last year alone.
Cecila Qvist, Spotify’s Global Head of Markets comments, “Our goal is to become the number one audio platform in the world, providing the best in audio content, customised, and accessible on-demand everywhere. The role our global markets play in this expansion is pivotal and we look forward to making many more announcements in this space”.
The announcement follows the recent launch of Spotify’s news and music playlist, Your Daily Drive. The feature gives listeners a seamless listening experience – combining the very best of news talk shows, including the relevancy and personality of the hosts, with the best of audio streaming (on demand, personalised playing and discovery).
Spotify is proud to offer a unified and accessible listening experience for fans with a diverse range of content, as an audio platform that prides itself on connecting and empowering creators and artists from different backgrounds and experiences.
Source: Hill+Knowlton Strategies media release
Podcasts have been shoehorned into Spotify, and you still get ads as a paying subscriber ?♂️
User ID not verified.