Spotify opens its wallet again: but now for videos

• Thought Spotify had stopped spending so much money on content? Think again: The company is making seven-figure offers to “encourage video-focused producers to distribute their shows on the platform in addition to YouTube,” according to a new scoop from Bloomberg's Ashley Carman. She points out that when videos are uploaded to the service, the audio is pulled from the video file rather than the RSS feed (thus avoiding dynamically inserted ads).

• The BBC is doubling down on its podcast windowing strategy. It is making more podcast episodes available exclusively behind a registration wall on the BBC Sounds app first – usually for a week (seven days) or a month (28 days) – and only then releasing them on open RSS. The BBC claims that an 18-month trial was successful, attracting 218,000 listeners (4.3% of the total audience) to BBC Sounds, but admits that the majority of listeners still use open RSS to listen. The BBC was the first UK broadcaster to launch podcasts in November 2004, but has since withdrawn from the open web.

  • The BBC is funded by a mandatory television license of £169.50 (US$220) per year, as well as advertising and program sales outside the UK. Recently announced plans to include advertising in podcasts within the UK have been met with fierce criticism.

• Google's NotebookLM now lets you “listen to a conversation about your sources” – it takes a whole bunch of articles and turns them into a “lively conversation”, or as we would call it, a podcast. We asked it to take our popular article explaining podcast statistics. And the 7-minute result is really quite impressive. Worth a listen.

  • The difference between a download and a listening is completely distorted – but we like the description that a download is “people who confirm their attendance at a party by RSVPing”, but a listening is “people who actually show up”.

Thanks to Andy Bowers who became our personal supporter this week. We are proud of his support, co-founder of Spooler and former co-founder of Megaphone, founder of Slate Podcasts and Pinna. Thank you! You can become like Andy here.

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Podcast News

Companies mentioned above:
ExhibitionmegaphoneauriclePodcast DiscoverySpotify

Podcast data for September 13th

No. 1 on Apple Podcasts
So Supernatural (Audiochuck | Crime House)
The rest is politics: USA (Goalhanger)

#1 on Spotify
The Joe Rogan Experience (Joe Rogan)
Tipsy Topics (Bethandwhatt)

In the last week, 192,337 podcasts released at least one new episode (plus 0.0%). source

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