Spotify vs. YouTube | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Okay, really quickly because Spotify did come up. We're almost

0:04 Speaker 1: out of time. I want to hit this really fast though.

0:06 Speaker 1: This is from Digital Music Digital Music News dot Com again,

0:10 Speaker 1: another one of my favorite sites for this stuff. Spotify

0:13 Speaker 1: has invested more than one billion dollars on podcasting. I

0:16 Speaker 1: think most of that money went to Joe Rogan. So

0:19 Speaker 1: why can't it be YouTube? This is interesting to me.

0:23 Speaker 1: And by the way, you can find this show on Spotify.

0:25 Speaker 1: We uploaded to Spotify, it's on YouTube, et cetera. But

0:28 Speaker 1: it's But I'm not making any you know. I mean,

0:30 Speaker 1: Spotify hasn't given me a big contract. They didn't backup

0:33 Speaker 1: brinkstruck up to my home like they did Joe Rogan.

0:35 Speaker 1: But anyway, but I'm not bitter. YouTube continues to steamroll

0:40 Speaker 1: Spotify in the podcasting game, despite the latter's billion dollar

0:43 Speaker 1: investment in the medium over the last few years. By

0:45 Speaker 1: the way, off the top of my head, my gut reaction,

0:47 Speaker 1: people really like the video component rather than just listening

0:51 Speaker 1: to audio more and more so all the time Spotify,

0:54 Speaker 1: it's just audio YouTube. You can watch the video, it

0:57 Speaker 1: says here. YouTube has, unsurprised, been the dominating force in

1:02 Speaker 1: the video content space for years, but it's also the

1:05 Speaker 1: leader in the podcast space in a major way. New

1:09 Speaker 1: data from Edison Research shows the Google owned platform has

1:13 Speaker 1: now overtaken Spotify in the UK as the most popular

1:17 Speaker 1: space for video podcast consumption. According to the data, twenty

1:22 Speaker 1: nine percent of weekly British podcast listeners age fifteen plus

1:26 Speaker 1: chose YouTube as the service they most use to consume podcasts,

1:31 Speaker 1: notably twenty eight percent to Spotify. So it's still fairly

1:34 Speaker 1: not connected by the way all the podcasts I listen to,

1:36 Speaker 1: I just go to YouTube. That's my you know, so

1:41 Speaker 1: I get it, says here. However, the new still comes

1:43 Speaker 1: as a significant blow to Spotify, which has been investing

1:46 Speaker 1: millions in its podcasting and video infrastructure over the past

1:49 Speaker 1: several years. That includes a partnership with Netflix and buying

1:52 Speaker 1: up podcasting platforms like The Ringer, Grimlet, media anchor Parcast

1:59 Speaker 1: and the advertising publishing infrastructure network Megaphone. Spotify has also

2:05 Speaker 1: secured exclusivity deals with big names in the podcasting space,

2:09 Speaker 1: which have included Joe Rogan I'm not going to get

2:11 Speaker 1: in all the numbers, Alex Cooper, Prince Harry and Megan

2:17 Speaker 1: markle I guess. If you're an anglophile, you want that content,

2:21 Speaker 1: I guess. But Spotify founder and then CEO Daniel Eck

2:24 Speaker 1: noted that the company's expensive deals were a drag on margins,

2:27 Speaker 1: which led to a pivot and strategy and resulted in

2:30 Speaker 1: cost cutting and a slew of canceled shows and layoffs

2:34 Speaker 1: that also put the kyash on Spotify's strategy of cutting

2:36 Speaker 1: exclusive deals with big name podcasters. By late twenty twenty four,

2:44 Speaker 1: YouTube was already the go to destination for podcasts, at

2:48 Speaker 1: least for the majority of Americans, according to Edison. In

2:51 Speaker 1: October of that year, Edison reported that thirty one percent

2:54 Speaker 1: of weekly podcast listeners aged thirteen and up chose YouTube

2:58 Speaker 1: as the service they most listen to for podcasts. Edison

3:02 Speaker 1: noted quote a few years ago, YouTube might have seemed

3:05 Speaker 1: like an unlikely platform for podcasts, but as the world

3:08 Speaker 1: of podcasting evolves, many podcasters have embraced video podcasting, recording

3:13 Speaker 1: their shows in both audio and video formats. Not only

3:17 Speaker 1: can podcast consumers listen to episodes, but they can also

3:20 Speaker 1: watch video versions of their favorite shows. As video and

3:23 Speaker 1: audio content continue to overlap, creators and listeners are benefiting

3:27 Speaker 1: from more dynamic and engaging experiences just a little more Here,

3:36 Speaker 1: it says, despite injecting over a billion dollars into podcasting,

3:39 Speaker 1: Spotify remains out of disadvantages. Podcasting continues to evolve into

3:43 Speaker 1: a video forward format. While Spotify has been investing in

3:47 Speaker 1: expanding into the format, it's difficultiple users who are already

3:50 Speaker 1: used consuming video content on YouTube. Many users have also

3:56 Speaker 1: expressed this interest in the increase in video content on Spotify,

4:00 Speaker 1: which they say they use and want to continue using

4:04 Speaker 1: only to listen to music. By the way, note about that,

4:09 Speaker 1: I apparently am so disinterested myself in Spotify's video content

4:15 Speaker 1: that I forgot if you notice, if you were listening carefully,

4:18 Speaker 1: you might have caught my mistake. I was talking about

4:21 Speaker 1: Spotify like there's no video on Spotify. There is video

4:23 Speaker 1: on Spotify. I just forget that it's there. I think

4:28 Speaker 1: of Spotify as audio. I don't think of Spotify for video.

4:31 Speaker 1: I think of YouTube for video. And I think that's

4:33 Speaker 1: true for a lot of people, and I think that's

4:35 Speaker 1: part of Spotify's problem. We did talk on the show recently.

4:38 Speaker 1: It was a couple of weeks ago. I think about

4:39 Speaker 1: how Spotify is ramping up there, and it's not mentioned

4:42 Speaker 1: in this article, and I'm almost surprised, but I guess

4:44 Speaker 1: they wanted to focus on the podcast element with the article.

4:47 Speaker 1: But Spotify is beginning to ramp up for having for

4:52 Speaker 1: competing directly with YouTube. As far as music videos, Spotify

4:57 Speaker 1: wants to have music videos, and maybe they already have some.

4:59 Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Again, I haven't looked, but they want to,

5:02 Speaker 1: you know, because usually if you're looking for a music video,

5:05 Speaker 1: you're going to go to YouTube. Spotify wants to really

5:08 Speaker 1: enhance that component, that part and parcel of Spotify streaming

5:12 Speaker 1: platform music videos and live performances of the artists that

5:17 Speaker 1: they have on their platform. So there's also that part

5:21 Speaker 1: of their strategy. But clearly they've invested. Again, I think

5:25 Speaker 1: Joe Rogan got most of that money, but they've invested

5:28 Speaker 1: enormous amounts enormous amounts of money in podcasting, and it

5:32 Speaker 1: doesn't seem at least in terms of competing with YouTube,

5:36 Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be paying off for them,