Audio giant Spotify is expanding its video streaming offering to premium subscribers in 85 new markets, stepping up its effort to become a music video platform
“As with all of our features, availability can vary across markets and tiers,” a Spotify spokesperson told tech outlet The Verge. Music videos, they said, are still in beta testing and will be expanded to more markets in the future. The initial launch back in March covered 11 countries – the UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Columbia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kenya. It later added Egypt. Spotify did not specify which countries or regions are included in the new rollout announced on Tuesday.
Expanded offerings from the streaming platform have come with a series of price hikes across markets in recent years, indicating that a music video rollout may also signal another increase for subscribers. In an earnings call earlier this year, co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek told investors that Spotify determines its “ability to raise pricing” in a given market on being “able to bring more value to our consumers.”
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Expanding market coverage for videos will also include new features like tags that tell a user a video option is available, videos appearing in search options, and the ability to toggle “seamlessly” between video and audio-only options, switching between the two without missing a beat. Orienting your device to landscape mode will also allow users to view music videos in full screen.
New features, as Ek explained, are how the company justifies price increases and as user growth slows “price increases become [an] even more important tool in the toolbox.” The platform’s expansion into podcast and audiobooks, then video podcasts and now music videos over the last few years hasn’t come without industry criticism, however.
The decision to bundle audiobooks with music, for example, reduced the mechanical royalty rates for music rights holders in the US in a move one executive told Music Business Worldwide was “low, even for Spotify.” A lawsuit over that decision was followed in May by a formal warning from the US-based National Music Publishers’ Association over the unlicensed use of lyrics, videos and podcasts on the platform.
