Streaming Audio; More Of Everything, Everywhere

Michael Hedges February 24, 2021 Follow on Twitter

Every medium has a preferred technology. When the world was far different that technology was often proprietary. Indeed, as the internet democraticized information, loosely defined, every medium had to confront that significant change in platforms. For users, that shift has been rather painless. For media concerns, changing gears has been fraught and expensive.

Executives with audio streaming platform Spotify offered a slew of new features this past week. It continues the dominant online business model: flood the market. Once known mostly for music streaming, Spotify has now fully embraced podcasts. The service is expanding into 85 more countries. An advertising network is coming together. And, too, monthly rates for premium users are going up. The announcement was made at the Stream On event (February 22).

Spotify is becoming a significant component for the mobile phone. Its services are perfectly matched for smartphone users; adaptive, interactive, personal and brief. Spotify arrived in 2008 just a year after the first iPhone, seven years before Apple released its Apple Music streaming service and nine years before Apple effectively discontinued the iPod product. Apple Music is Spotify’s most significant competitor, particularly in the United States.

In its “broadest market expansion to date,” Spotify is adding local service in Africa, Asia/Pacific and the Caribbean bring its total coverage to 178 countries. This means Spotify will soon be in Jamaica. “We can just imagine what this will do for our artists in terms of reach,” said Jamaican music consultant Donovan Watkis to Jamaica Star (February 24). “They now have the opportunity to be more competitive with their international counterparts and really get a chance to show their calibre which may result in their records being pushed up on international music charts.”

Also on the list of new markets is Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia. “Kyrgyz exporters will now be able to enter the South Korean market,” wrote news portal akchabar.kg (February 23) in a note summing up the level of interest. Spotify launched widely anticipated service to South Korea, the world’s sixth largest music market, at the first of February noted Variety (February 22).

That means K-Pop for the whole world. Spotify’s first K-Pop playlist appeared in 2014 and since its South Korean user base has increased by 2,000%, reported Jonhap News Agency (February 8). Alas, there is no free Spotify service in South Korea. K-Pop is quite the rage, “a multi-billion dollar global music industry,” said Reuters (February 1).

Spotify has 345 million total monthly active users, according to Q4 2020 figures and 155 million at the Premium-level, typically just under US$10 monthly. To interest audiophiles - at an additional fee - it will offer “in select markets” Spotify HiFi later this year, its branded service for higher quality streaming. Amazon Music already offers “lossless” service quality as does Tidal.

There will be more podcasts, many more in many languages. Prince Harry and Megan Markle have a Spotify podcast series, outraging right-wing UK newspapers. Former US President Barack Obama and music legend Bruce Springsteen will release a podcast series, outraging right-wing US TV channels. Outrage works for increasing subscriptions. Spotify acquired podcasting hosting platform Anchor in 2019 and monitization tool Megaphone last year. Podcast creation is screaming in the US and “growing much faster… outside the US,” noted investment tip sheet Motley Fool (February 15).

See also...

• Hot Topics - Streaming Media

• Hot Topics - Podcasts and Podcasting

• Hot Topics - Music and Media

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