media
Spotify and radio stations: partner, competitor or both?
The music streaming market leader Spotify is reaping the first fruits of its podcast offensive. Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
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The music streaming market leader Spotify is now also reaping the first fruits in terms of podcasts. And the group wants to attract even more providers to its platform. What does this mean for traditional radio stations?
In the competition for the growing audio market, the streaming provider Spotify wants to attract radio stations and publishers even more to its platform. “We see ourselves more like a browser for audio,” said Spotify European boss Michael Krause on Wednesday at the audio summit of the Munich Media Days.
Spotify has changed from a pure music streaming platform to a system for music and podcasts with many content and providers. “There is still plenty of opportunity for private and public radio to use it,” said Krause. Publishers with their podcasts are also a new provider in the audio sector. Especially in the local area, for example, there is “great relevant content”.
Spotify is reaping the harvest
The music streaming market leader is now reaping the first fruits of its podcast offensive. In the past quarter, advertising revenues jumped 75 percent year-on-year to 323 million euros. Their share of the entire Spotify business rose from a good 9 to around 13 percent, as the company from Stockholm announced on Wednesday. Spotify had invested a lot in the expansion of the podcast offer in recent months with acquisitions and exclusive deals.
Deutschlandradio program director Jona Teichmann named Spotify partners and competitors at the same time. “We are partners, but we are also competitors,” she said. “Maybe at some point we will just be competitors.”
“Go where the people are”
Deutschlandradio decided early on to go with content on Spotify. “We go where the people are,” said Teichmann for the public broadcaster. The managing director of RTL Radio Deutschland, Nina Gerhardt, also emphasized: The crux of the matter is to offer the content on new mobile channels. “We have to be where people want to hear us.”
Regarding the future of the cooperation with Spotify, Teichmann said: The platform is important in order to reach a certain audience. “And if that is no longer the case, then the platform is no longer important.” Ultimately, the quality of the offer is also decisive. “I also believe that audio is not successful because of the platform, but because of the content and the design.”
Spotify now has 172 million subscription customers, 7 million more than three months ago. As before, Spotify expects up to 181 million subscription customers and 407 million users in total at the end of the year.
The Spotify group turnover grew by 27 percent to 2.5 billion euros. Bottom line, Spotify posted a quarterly profit of two million euros – after red numbers of 101 million euros a year earlier. Spotify is clearly number one ahead of Apple in the music streaming business.