Thinking about just listening to a podcast? How passé.
Spotify introduced video podcast features back in 2020, and as demand for video content, particularly among Gen Z listeners, remains strong, the company is continuing to invest in a video podcast strategy with this year’s Radar class.
Radar is a global Spotify program focused on spotlighting rising artists, songwriters, creators, and podcasters to the world and providing them with access to tools to take their product “to the next level,” according to Spotify Head of Partnerships Jordan Newman.
This year’s podcast class of creators includes the people behind Joy of Missing Out, I’m Right You’re Wrong, Small Ball with Kenny Beecham, Black People Love Paramore, and PRETEND. Notably, four out of five podcasts feature a video component—a trend that Newman says is in response to an “enormous shift” in the podcasting industry.
Better seen than heard?
With more than 250,000 video podcasts on the platform, and more than 170 million users who have watched a video podcast on the platform, according to the company, Spotify has been slowly pivoting to video—and seeing results—for a while, Newman said.
“It’s something we’ve been investing in for a long time,” Newman told Marketing Brew. “Our biggest podcast,The Joe Rogan Experience, has had video on our platform for a number of years now, but it’s become quite extensive.”
In 2020, Spotify spent €195 million to acquire Megaphone, a podcast technology company that the company said would help it “expand and scale its podcast monetization and product offerings for advertisers,” according to its 2020 annual report. These offerings include support for video podcasts on Spotify, content and ad performance analytics, and clickable promos.
As the company continues to grow its video capabilities, Spotify has seen particular interest from Gen Z, who are "increasingly searching for [and] consuming video content," according to Newman.
And it’s not just Spotify seeing a the rise in demand for video podcasts, either; YouTube has also seen overall growth as a podcast platform since 2019, and as of this spring, was the “most utilized podcast listening platform in the US for the last year and half,” according to a report from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights.
With Radar, Spotify is aiming to help this year’s class of podcasters amplify their reach by identifying their particular needs, like enhanced video production and community building, and connecting them with the features best suited to them. These can include masterclasses on video best practices, tips on the recently launched comments section—which Newman says can help some creators get feedback from their audiences—or access to Spotify’s studios to facilitate in-person filming sessions, potentially bringing some podcasts’ existing video elements up a notch.
New workflows, new opportunities
Creators told us that video podcasts can help them monetize their content in different ways and focus on engaging with specific audiences.
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Sequoia Holmes, host of Black People Love Paramore, sees the potential for expanded brand deals. Holmes currently works with the Maximum Fun network, which helps her monetize her podcast with selected aligned ads and a subscription model.
Video podcasting “kind of opens up brand deals,” Holmes said. “It means now instead of just reading this HelloFresh ad, you can also do an Instagram component or some other video component to it that allows for more income to come that way.”
Isa Medina’s podcast, I’m Right You’re Wrong, was made with a Gen Z/millennial cusp audience in mind, she told us, but she has found that including video has helped her feel more confident in her connection to Gen Z.
“We’re all so addicted to visual stimulation, and I think the video component definitely helps us focus on that,” Medina told Marketing Brew.
Data from Spotify backs this feeling up: A study released by the platform earlier this year says that more than 21% of total podcast consumption from users ages 13–17 is “dedicated to video shows.”
Holmes and Medina host chatty, back-and-forth style podcasts, which they both said they feel benefits from a video component because of added nuance and connection. But not every successful podcast is filmed, especially on Spotify. A look at the top ten true-crime podcasts, for example, showed that none include video on the platform.
As he continues to work with this year’s Radar class, Newman recognizes that not every podcast needs to have a video component. “I think there are some great audio-only podcasts, and there’s certainly some magic that happens when you’re an audio-only podcast and you have that intimate experience of a voice in your ear,” he said. “But I think for the right format and for the right genre, it can be incredibly additive, and I feel like that’s certainly what we’re seeing happen across our catalog.”