Spotify introduced final week that it will roll out public play counts on all podcasts as a means of “serving to entice new followers.” But podcasters swiftly responded with criticism of the brand new function — primarily, that it will additional promote podcasts that have already got massive audiences whereas making smaller reveals much less interesting to new listeners.
On Friday, Spotify modified course on its plans, however didn’t utterly eschew the thought. Now, play counts will solely seem on reveals with at the least 50,000 performs every. Instead of displaying a precise play rely, the designation will solely replace at particular milestones, like 100,000 or 1 million performs.
“We plan to roll this newly advanced model of play counts over the approaching week,” the corporate wrote in a weblog put up. “This replace displays our evolving efforts to offer the very best insights for creators and a transparent expertise for his or her followers.”
For many years, podcast internet hosting platforms haven’t shared many public indicators of a present’s recognition — Apple Podcasts, for instance, has had opinions and charts on its app, however it will be difficult for a listener to know if a present had an viewers within the tens or the tens of 1000’s.
Though Spotify takes the angle that this ambiguity is a detriment, creators have been drawn to the podcasting medium partially as a result of it’s refreshingly completely different from different types of on-line media. When somebody clicks play on a YouTube video, for instance, they’re approaching the media with the prevailing information of what number of views the video has, and the way many individuals have subscribed to that channel. But podcasting can stage the taking part in subject for extra area of interest creators.
Podcasters have additionally expressed frustration with the shortage of a transparent metric for what counts as a “play” or a “stream” amongst numerous completely different platforms.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) works with podcast platforms to determine a transparent metric for what’s outlined as a “play,” creating extra consistency for dealmaking amongst podcasters and advertisers. But in accordance with Podnews, the definition of what counts as a “play” is completely different on Spotify and YouTube — two of the most well-liked podcast listening platforms — than the IAB commonplace.
Spotify mentioned that play counts will check with the variety of occasions “individuals actively tried” the content material, whereas streams and downloads solely rely after 60 seconds of engagement.
