Over the last couple of years, Spotify has made a big push into podcasts. The tip of the spear has been major investments, including acquisitions of companies like Gimlet and Anchor. It’s all part of the company’s attempt harness a massively growing category and build an audience beyond music.
The other great thing about podcasts for a company like Spotify is the access to a tremendous amount of free content created by third-party producers. They record it, edit it and host it, and all Spotify has to do is index the stuff. Spotify for Podcasters is a new platform for the company designed to give creators more control — or at least insight — into how that content is served up.
The feature came out of beta today and is available for all users, showing key analytics like listening time, number of listeners and episode streams. “With so many podcasts out there, it’s more important than ever that you have the data you need to help you understand and grow your audience,” the company writes. “That’s exactly what your dashboard is designed to provide.”
I’ve been playing around with the feature a bit this morning and am finding some interesting bits of demographic info based on the sample. My show RiYL is a mix of different interviews with subjects across a wide variety of different mediums.
No surprise, the ones with musical guests are doing far better than any other. I suspect many or most users are discovering episodes will searching for music on the service. That will likely be the case until Spotify becomes more known for podcast offerings.
Seems the show’s listeners are mostly male (disappointing, but perhaps not surprising), aged 35-44, located in the United States. The also listen to a lot of Beatles, Bon Iver, Velvet Underground and Radiohead. Go figure.
The feature follows the similar Spotify for Artists offering and promises additional information/insight as it matures.
