Spotify has paid greater than $100 million to podcast publishers and creators since January, the corporate advised The New York Occasions’s DealBook.
The payout is the results of a program launched in 2025 that opened up new income streams to eligible hosts. However additionally it is an try to attract extra creators (and their audiences) to Spotify, because the rise of video podcasting has pushed lots of them to YouTube.
Video has come to dominate podcasting. Greater than half of Individuals over the age of 12 have watched a video podcast — however totally on YouTube, based on an Edison Analysis report from January. The service claims to succeed in 1 billion podcast customers each month, making it the dominant platform for podcasts — a media king and kingmaker — and leaving onetime audio-only platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts within the mud. (Spotify launched video podcasts in 2019.)
In contrast with YouTube, Spotify has turn out to be a podcast underdog, with about 170 million month-to-month podcast listeners amongst its whole viewers of 675 million. One indication of how far Spotify has to go to catch as much as the highest participant: YouTube paid out greater than $70 billion to creators and media firms from 2021 to 2024.
The corporate experiences earnings on Tuesday and is anticipated to make about 540 million euros in pretax revenue on 4.2 billion euros in gross sales, based on S&P Capital IQ.
However Spotify, which is listed on the New York Inventory Alternate however is predicated in Stockholm, stays a serious participant within the trade thanks partly to its expertise roster — it distributes and sells promoting for the largest podcast on the planet, “The Joe Rogan Expertise.” And it achieved its first full 12 months of profitability in 2024. (Mr. Rogan’s podcasts are additionally accessible on YouTube.)
The brand new companion program goals to chip away at YouTube’s dominance. Spotify beforehand paid creators solely by sharing promoting income with them, very similar to YouTube. Now it additionally provides them incentives to add movies, with eligible creators incomes extra cash based mostly on how a lot premium subscribers have interaction with their movies.
The corporate is attempting to draw extra viewers. On the identical time that Spotify introduced the partnership program in November, it introduced that paid subscribers in sure markets wouldn’t have to observe dynamic advertisements in video podcasts. Video consumption has already elevated by greater than 40 p.c since January, based on Spotify.
The query now could be whether or not Spotify can persuade creators to shift priorities.
David Coles, host of the horror fiction podcast “Simply Creepy: Scary Tales,” mentioned he’s re-evaluating his “dwelling platform” after his Spotify income just lately surpassed his YouTube income. Final quarter, Mr. Coles mentioned he obtained about $45,500 from Spotify. After becoming a member of the corporate’s new companion program, his quarterly Spotify revenue rose to about $81,600.
This improve might be much more dramatic for bigger exhibits and podcast firms, like YMH Studios, a comedy community with 2.1 million YouTube subscribers that produces well-liked podcasts together with “2 Bears, 1 Cave.” Whereas declining to share precise figures, YMH Studios mentioned its quarterly Spotify income greater than tripled after becoming a member of the companion program.
Though creators emphasised that these are nonetheless early days, Alan Abdine, the pinnacle of promoting income at YMH Studios, known as the brand new cost program “a game-changer” and “a really blissful shock.”
