Beyond video podcasts: Spotify’s investment in video creators reveals its format agnosticism

As more sustainable acquisitions come to podcasting, according to Podnews, Spotify is again looking to spend up to seven figures on creator investments. This time, video is the primary focus. Per Bloomberg, Spotify’s content acquisition strategy is shifting from podcasters to video creators: “What’s different in today’s news is Spotify seeking YouTube-oriented creators and specifically looking for them to simply put their show on the service”.

Spotify’s increased attention on video is no secret — nor is Spotify the only audio platform to roll out video features — but the company’s willingness to invest heavily in content creators whose primary focus is not audio does shed light on the company’s larger ambitions. By investing in video creators, Spotify is no longer just trying to bring audio listeners onto the platform — or convert those audio listeners to video watchers. The company is now trying to bring video watchers onto the platform, suggesting Spotify’s video ambitions go beyond using video as an audio accessory. That does not mean Spotify is becoming a video platform; rather, Spotify is becoming a format agnostic platform.

In 2020, Spotify spent hundreds of millions of dollars on exclusive deals with podcast celebrities Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper, among others. While many inside and outside of the podcast industry considered Spotify’s investments extravagant, in hindsight, that heavy investment strategy accomplished what the platform was ultimately striving for: to quickly become the top podcast platform in the world.

YouTube, however, was waiting in the wings. During the digital consumption boom of the pandemic era, YouTube became the go-to platform for podcast listening for a number of reasons, including podcasting’s global growth, the ease and accessibility with which consumption happens on the video platform, and the effectiveness of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. 

The fact that a video platform is the top source of consumption for two audio formats — namely, music and podcasts — has Spotify not only augmenting its audio offerings with video but actually building up its catalogue of video content. According to Bloomberg, “Generally, it seems the platform isn’t interested in acquiring the rights to produce the programming or exclusively sell ads on it. The company just wants the shows to be made available on the platform to beef up its video catalogue”.

While Spotify’s stated aims are to remain an audio-first platform, this second wave of creator investments suggest a more complicated story. Spotify’s investment play right now is not about monetising video content from audio creators so much as it is making Spotify more of a video platform. That is not to say that the platform is pivoting to video altogether; rather, Spotify is becoming an audio plus video platform.

Spotify’s recent Fan Study is all about video podcasts, and according to the study, “To date, over 170 million have tuned in to enjoy video podcasts, with the vast majority actively engaging with the content (both watching and listening). This inclination towards video content is intensifying — in the past year alone, we've seen an 88% surge in users consuming video podcasts…. Video podcasts don't require you to be glued to your screen. In fact, Spotify audiences are adapting their experience, with 67% switching between watching and listening as their day unfolds”.

Though audio, including music, is what Spotify knows best, the platform is format agnostic. The company’s mission is “to unlock the potential of human creativity — by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it”. Audio — or the mention of any format — is notably absent from this mission. Creative artists could very well include video creators, whether those creators have podcasts or not.

Because of Spotify’s audio-first identity, it will be difficult to move video audiences from YouTube to Spotify — no matter how much investment goes into video creators. Ultimately, Spotify just has to make its video offering good enough to keep users from switching platforms when they want to engage visually with audio content.