Spotify opens paid podcast subscription access

• Spotify has announced the first partners for their Open Access feature, which will allow paid subscriptions from third parties to work with Spotify. They include Acast+, Glow․fm, Memberful, Supporting Cast and Supercast, as well as a number of publishers. See analysis, below.

  • Spotify’s Megaphone has signed Canada’s The Weather Network to the Spotify Audience Network.
  • The company’s research department has also published a paper about recommendations.

• Magellan AI has launched its Q2/21 (US) Podcast Advertising Benchmark Report. It says that podcast ad spending continues to grow (up 22% from last quarter), and has seen a 55% increase on brands using the medium.

• Buzzsprout has added a dynamic content library, allowing you to save and track dynamic pre-rolls or post-rolls. The feature also comes with tracking, so you know how many times each pre-roll or post-roll has been heard.

• Podcast editor Descript has launched “Studio Sound”, a “voice regeneration” service that claims to reduce noise, remove room echo and to “make it sound like you’re in a studio”. There’s a little demo on the website; it’s in opt-in beta.

• Headliner Backstage has been launched: anyone with a recording from a social audio app, can now upload, transcribe, and create promotional videos. It features speaker separation, is integrated with Headliner, and is free to use.

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• Lantigua Williams & Co has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation Grant for a documentary reparations podcast.

• Podcast app Shuffle has added a set of AI-powered chatbots so you can pretend you’re chatting with Joe Rogan, Bill Simmons, Alexandra Cooper, or other podcasters. We asked some awkward questions of Rogan, all of which “he” declined to answer.

• In Mexico, commercial radio broadcaster Grupo Radio Centro has launched Audio Centro, a specific division for podcasts. Podcasts include daily news, horro fiction, and a comedy show.

• TEGNA’s Locked On Podcast Network has announced that twenty local sports shows are now available on YouTube as well as on TEGNA tv station’s apps.

• Jennifer Dollard has been promoted by Acast to Content Director, Ireland; and the company has hired Hannah O’Connell as Associate Partner Manager in the country. The announcement says Acast is achieving 7.5m listens in Ireland every month, and has significant revenue growth in the country.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 5 2023

• Isabel Lara has been promoted to NPR’s first Chief Communications Officer.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 5 2023

• Changes at Chartable? In May, CRO Christopher Calvi left the company, Account Exec Megan Johnson moved to Podsights, and COO Karo Chakhlasyan left this month to rejoin Wondery.

  
  Sep 5 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Tips and tricks

• Rating and reviewing a podcast won’t help it get to the top of the Apple Podcast charts, says the Australian ABC’s Andrew Davies in the latest edition of Podcasting Essentials - but you can benefit from clear calls-to-action in your podcast.
• How to promote your podcast on social media - from Buzzsprout’s podcast marketing series.

Podcast News

Toxic: The Britney Spears Story has been downloaded over 550,000 times in the first three weeks, according to SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz in an earnings call.

Crane’s Corner, the popular feature once heard on Sacramento’s NewsRadio KFBK, is now a podcast. Journalist Ed Crane has covered some of the biggest stories in the past four decades.

Analysis

Spotify’s announcement about their open access feature conveniently includes many of the main competitors to Apple Podcasts paid subscriptions. Patreon may be included through their Acast integration, we’d guess; leaving Substack as the only major service not included.

With this announcement, Spotify is supporting a variety of different ways to charge for your podcast, if you so wish - using services like Memberful, Supporting Cast or Acast+. Unlike Apple, each of these allow you to keep control over your membership list; none charge anywhere near the 30% fee that Apple does; and, unlike apple, all work on Android, the most popular mobile OS in every continent.

Since the Apple Podcasts app also accepts private RSS feeds, all these services also work with Apple: the only drawback is that users need to subscribe on a website away from the Apple ecosystem.

Spotify is showing that it’s entirely comfortable playing in the open world of RSS, and now an open world of paid subscriptions: however you want to sell them.

Apple Podcasts, iOS-only, with a 100% lock-in model for subscriptions and a hefty commission, would seem to offer less earning potential for creators.