Spotify has announced the rollout of paid podcast subscriptions which will allow creators to attract listeners who are willing to pay for bonus content.
Through Spotify’s podcast creation tool Anchor, podcasters will be able to mark select episodes as subscriber-only content, then publish them to Spotify and other platforms. The service was initially tested with a dozen independent creators and is now expanding to creators who had previously registered for the waitlist.
For the time being, Spotify is only opening up paid subscriptions to creators in the U.S., but it aims to expand internationally in the months ahead.
The company indicated that for the next two years, this programme will come at no cost to the creator, meaning that participating creators will receive 100% of their subscriber revenues (excluding payment transaction fees). Starting in 2023, Spotify is planning to introduce a competitive 5% fee for access to this tool.
The first group of participating creators includes 12 independent podcasters who are each uniquely well-positioned to succeed in gaining meaningful revenue from their audiences. These creators will publish subscriber-only bonus content in their existing podcast feeds. Starting now, Spotify is going to begin accepting submissions from the waitlist, effectively expanding the programme to more creators and the rest of the world over the coming months.
Spotify also unveiled a collaboration with NPR in which they will publish a selection of their shows sponsor-free for paid subscribers. Five shows will be available starting May 4—How I Built This with Guy Raz, Short Wave, It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, Code Switch, and Planet Money—with more to come in the following weeks.
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