Spotify is fighting the podcast platform wars on multiple fronts

Though Spotify started as a music streaming platform, it quickly conquered its primary competitor in the space, turning to podcasts to solidify the victory. Google has only recently diminished Spotify’s success with the growth of YouTube as an unofficial podcast platform — and all of this as Spotify simultaneously takes on Amazon’s previously cornered audiobook market. While YouTube’s dominance across multiple formats almost seems accidental, Spotify’s efforts to grow each audio market is ultimately driven by two things: increasing subscriber count and maximising user engagement. In order to continue its race to the top of the audio platform pyramid, it must provide users with a wide array of formats … even video.

In 2024, Spotify opened up direct user uploads of video for podcasts, but these video episodes effectively replace the RSS audio versions on Spotify. In other words, Spotify is encouraging a format shift from a traditional podcast to a video podcast. This strategy may be indicative of larger trends driven by YouTube’s global popularity, as our MIDiA podcast forecasts elucidate. In order to compete with YouTube’s growing dominance in podcasting, Spotify must play the same game, moving toward video streams and away from RSS downloads. 

According to PodTrac, we can already see the transition happening in the data for May 2024: “Total RSS traffic across all Global Network participants was down 3% month-over-month, while total reported YouTube views were up 11% during the same time period”. This does not necessarily mean that RSS is a soon-to-be relic of podcasting, but considering Spotify’s April 2024 exit from the IAB, it does indicate that Spotify sees podcasts as an evolving format. For Spotify, the company’s foray into video is a continuation of its historical strategic initiatives: broadening subscriber appeal and deepening user engagement by meeting mass consumers where they are. Right now, mass consumers do not really care about format delineations; they just want easy access to quality content at a low price.

Roles

This report is relevant to the following roles:

Audience Insight