Spotify adding podcasts?

Spotify has plans to add more non-music programming with reports suggesting the streaming service will add podcasts.

TechCrunch made the initial suggestion of Spotify adding podcasts in its report on new features in November. Bloomberg has reported sources who “asked not to be identified” said Spotify Ltd held talks with potential content partners to add podcasts.

TMN reached out to Spotify who responded with the same statement issued to TechCrunch last year:

“We've had spoken word content in our catalogue for quite a while now, highlighted in the "Word" section within Browse. In order to keep improving Spotify, we are always testing new things to our different platforms and to various user groups. We don't have any more information to share right now. But as soon as we do, we’ll let you know!”

Should Spotify introduce podcasts, it would further align it in competition with Apple, which is re-launching its Beats’ music service in June at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and steer its reliance away from record labels - an email which leaked earlier this month showed that Spotify is expecting to pay UMG US$1 billion over the next two years to cover royalties, ad revenue and subscription fees.

Streaming service Deezer added over 35,000 radio shows and podcasts when it acquired radio service Stitcher in 2014, a San Francisco-based company.

Apple’s iTunes has been offering podcasts since June 2005. Apple has said that in 2014 podcast subscriptions on iTunes surpassed 1 billion. Its most subscribed to podcasts include comedian Marc Maron’s WTF, where his interviews with public personalities receives over 220,000 downloads per episode, BBC’s Global News and Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist.

Spotify claims it has 60 million users, of which 15 million are paid subscribers. That could rise to 40 million in five years.