After a launch of Spotify's video ambitions earlier in the month,
industry observers are
increasingly asking: why has Spotify's Head of Podcast Monetisation
and Innovation so
publicly decided not to back it?
First spotted by Chris Peterson and again earlier this week by
John McDermott, while
you can watch the Bill Simmons podcast in full video on YouTube,
you can only listen
to the same episode on Spotify.
The Ringer isn't posting video on Spotify for many of their
shows, including the Ringer
NBA show, which again posts full video on YouTube but only audio
on Spotify.
And given that Spotify's been shouting about video since June of
last year, we're curious
as to The Ringer's reticence.
It has been reported and refuted that Simmons will leave Spotify
early next year.
The Spotify app has also added a recent carousel, helping you
remember what you've been listening
to or watching - and does adding full video to a show make any
difference to the algorithm
in Spotify and YouTube?
We quietly made one of these shows in full video earlier in the
week, and we uploaded
the video version to both Spotify and YouTube.
And here's what happened. YouTube?
Nothing.
No difference at all.
On Spotify, however, we did see an increase in total plays, and
interestingly the audio-only
version the day after was also bigger than usual.
Worthwhile mentioning that YouTube and Spotify both account for
less than 0.5% of our podcast
plays, so we're not talking big numbers.
So if anybody else wants to give it a go, that would be
interesting, wouldn't it?
Elsewhere, Narralize is a new tool that turns PDF content into
concise audio summaries
- translated too, if you want.
Adweek claims that podcasts are increasingly a visual medium.
The evidence given are figures from Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson,
Pod Save America and Charlie
Kirk.
Well, here's some cheeky Friday holiday opinion.
THOSE shows might be increasingly visual, but take a look at The
Daily from the New
York Times, which in 2020 was doing 4 million downloads each
episode as a podcast, likely
more now, while on YouTube each episode is doing 25,000.
All podcasts aren't Joe Rogan, after all - indeed, all podcasts
can't be turned into
video easily.
S-Town?
Serial?
Death in Ice Valley?
And some further reading for you today, the podcast host has
written "Your podcast won't
go viral and that's a good thing" and Pod The North writes about
corporate control of
Canadian media after yet more job cuts at Rogers.
We'll link to both of those and everything else we've talked
about from our show notes
and our newsletter at podnews.net.
And in podcast news in the Podnews Weekly Review today we chat
with Jon Thoday from
Avalon Entertainment, Nick Dunkerley from Hindenburg and a long
and worthwhile (and skippable) discussion
about the future of streaming payments for podcasting.
That's not the weekend if there's no Podnews Weekly Review.
You Are Error is new from games website Aftermath.
Each episode interviews a different guest about something that
either games or the people
that play them frequently get wrong.
It starts with a game designer who speaks Arabic and the many
lamentable attempts to
write something that looks like Arabic in games.
An architect and designer are on a journey to help their
community understand the nuances
of designing for the built environment, Sense of Space is on the
Surround podcast network
and launched in October.
It's hosted by Ella Hazard and Faraz Shah who explore all the
stuff we interact with
as designers, architects and people.
And do you have a long flight this weekend or perhaps an excuse to
go for a long walk and
discover a new podcast instead of staying in the same building
as that person a moment
longer - New Podcast Trailers puts podcast trailers for new and
interesting podcasts
right where you want it - in your podcast player.
You can follow new podcast trailers now and use it whenever you
need to.
And this podcast is sponsored by CoHost.
Uncover the seniority, departments, companies and industries
your listeners work in using
CoHost's B2B analytics feature to drive revenue.
Book a demo today - you'll find the link in our show notes and
we thank CoHost which
is built by Quill for their support this month.
And that's the latest from our newsletter.
To read all the stories and subscribe, we're at podnews.net