Spotify’s white noise drawback is turning into such a problem that the platform has thought-about banning the content material altogether. As Massive Three CEOs take concern with non-music content material—will Spotify take motion?
Spotify’s pivot towards mainstreaming podcasts and taking a few of the wind out of Apple’s sails within the course of began in 2019. However a few of the rewards they’re reaping had unintended penalties in 2023. Podcast progress is at an all-time excessive, however the high quality of that content material is decidedly much less so. Spotify’s self-hosted podcast platform has helped white noise podcast creators explode.
A Bloomberg report final yr detailed how podcasters create ‘white noise’ podcasts making $18,000 a month. The podcasts don’t include any speaking, as a substitute it presents sounds of waves crashing on a seashore, rain on a tenting tent, or birds and animals chattering deep in a jungle. The intent is to supply an ambiance for the listener, whether or not that’s for studying, sleeping, working, exercising, or the rest in between.
A brand new Bloomberg report suggests white noise podcast creation has exploded a lot that Spotify has thought-about banning the content material. White noise and ambient podcasts accounted for 3 million each day consumption hours—boosted by Spotify’s push for what it considers ‘discuss’ content material vs. music. Discuss content material with no phrases raking in thousands and thousands of listens.
“As soon as Spotify realized how a lot consideration was going to white noise podcasts, the corporate thought-about eradicating these exhibits from the discuss feed and prohibiting future uploads whereas redirecting the viewers towards comparable programming that was extra economical for Spotify,” the report reads. “Doing so [according to an internal document] would increase Spotify’s annual gross revenue by $38 million.”
Finally Spotify didn’t transfer ahead with banning white noise podcasts on its platform. However that doesn’t imply they’re secure. Individuals who depend on this content material and create playlists for straightforward entry have famous that a few of their favourite white noise movies have gone lacking from playlists they’ve created. Bloomberg even experiences that not less than one podcaster says their exhibits have gone lacking twice this yr alone.
“The primary time, the lacking episode drawback lasted three weeks and value them a mean of fifty,000 downloads per day,” Bloomberg experiences. “The second time—lasting 10 days—prompted them to lose a further 20,000 downloads per day.”
Whereas Spotify might not have banned the content material outright, it’s seemingly dealing with stress from the Massive Three music labels to do one thing about ‘white noise’ podcasts. UMG CEO Lucian Grainge and Warner Music CEO Robert Kyncl have each been outspoken in regards to the affect of non-music content material incomes from the identical royalty pool as their music superstars.