Spotify introduced final week that it might roll out public play counts on all podcasts as a means of “serving to appeal to new followers.” However podcasters swiftly responded with criticism of the brand new function — primarily, that it might additional promote podcasts that have already got massive audiences whereas making smaller exhibits much less interesting to new listeners.
On Friday, Spotify modified course on its plans, however didn’t fully eschew the concept. Now, play counts will solely seem on exhibits with not less than 50,000 performs every. As a substitute of displaying a precise play depend, the designation will solely replace at particular milestones, like 100,000 or 1 million performs.
“We plan to roll this newly developed model of play counts over the approaching week,” the corporate wrote in a weblog submit. “This replace displays our evolving efforts to offer the most effective 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 might be difficult for a listener to know if a present had an viewers within the tens or the tens of 1000’s.
Although Spotify takes the angle that this ambiguity is a detriment, creators have been drawn to the podcasting medium partly 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 data of what number of views the video has, and the way many individuals have subscribed to that channel. However podcasting can degree the taking part in area 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 varied completely different platforms.
The Interactive Promoting Bureau (IAB) works with podcast platforms to ascertain a transparent metric for what’s outlined as a “play,” creating extra consistency for dealmaking amongst podcasters and advertisers. However in keeping with Podnews, the definition of what counts as a “play” is completely different on Spotify and YouTube — two of the preferred podcast listening platforms — than the IAB commonplace.
Spotify mentioned that play counts will check with the variety of occasions “folks actively tried” the content material, whereas streams and downloads solely depend after 60 seconds of engagement.
