Spotify Shuts Down Podcasters’ Access To Full-Licensed Music

(CTN News) – Spotify has announced that in June, some of its platform’s features, including the ability to record audio on the web and on mobile devices, as well as ‘Music + Talk,’ an experimental feature which allowed podcasters to include music tracks that were fully licensed into their podcasts, will be shut down.

In conjunction with this announcement, Spotify has announced that they are expanding their partnership with Riverside and integrating the popular podcast creation service’s tools into their podcasting platform.

Spotify announced in a blog post that as part of that shift,

It was discontinuing its web and mobile-native creation tools, including recording and editing tools, as well as its ‘Music + Talk’ format, beginning this summer.

Developed in 2020, the feature allows creators to add licensed, full-length tracks to episodes on Spotify which are running on the platform.

Despite this, it has been reported by The Verge that Spotify’s spokesperson Jordan Smith maintains that ‘Music + Talk’ did not have an impact outside of the niche community of music podcasters.

As Smith was quoted as saying, “'Music + Talk' was a format we had high hopes for, but after three years of investment, it has failed to gain meaningful traction with listeners, and remains non-monetizable for creators,” he declared.
In order to make the biggest impact on creators, we believe we need to continue to focus on tangible ways that they can find and grow an audience, as well as how they can build a sustainable lifestyle.

“I am excited to share with you that we have been experimenting with a number of unique formats and solutions for podcasters, but at this time we are unable to share anything with you,” he said.

It has also been reported that Spotify now has 236 million premium subscribers, an increase of four per cent over the previous quarter, according to the company.

It was disclosed as part of the company’s Q4 2023 financial results that it increased its monthly active users by 23 percent (year-on-year) to 602 million, which was one million more than the company’s forecast.

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