Thursday 18th November: Subscriber only podcasts now on Spotify

November 18, 2021

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Esther.

Apologies for leading with another Spotify story this morning. But this is actually pretty important for any of you thinking about paid audio.

Apple had a pretty bungled rollout of its paid podcast subscriptions feature earlier this year. Not to be outdone, Spotify has now done the same, but better (so far), because it actually seems to have listened to creators, and is also waiving commissions for the first two years.

Podcast publishers in 33 markets can now mark episodes as 'subscriber only', and choose from a variety of price point options. Spotify has also launched a feature to allow podcasters to download a list of subscribers' contact information. The service is available via Spotify's podcast creation platform Anchor, with subscriptions able to be accessed by both iOS and Android users.

With the release of Open Access on the horizon, the barriers to testing paid audio are rapidly coming down. Go forth and conquer.

If it was Peter's newsletter day, he'd have this as his highlighted story. But it isn't. The main goal of a well-designed cover was to stick out on a newsstand, but that's a pretty outdated concept now. Yet magazine covers still create quite a stir online when done well. “The actual process has not really changed that much,” Time's creative director said. “It’s still an eight-by-ten-and-a-half-inch blank canvas that I’m staring at that we have to figure out how to fill.”

Medium announced today its third and final acquisition of the year: Knowable, an audio-based learning platform featuring podcast-like courses from experts. Knowable will remain a standalone platform (which charges $25 annually for access to over 100 courses) but might be included in future Medium subscription bundles.

Our friends over at WNIP have released a revised and updated version of their 50 Ways To Make Media Pay report, written by Damian Radcliffe. It's a substantial read, covering everything from subscriptions and micropayments to affiliate partnerships and programmatic ads.

This week's podcast:

This week, we hear from Blair Tapper, Senior Vice President at The Independent US. She talks about what her priorities have been since the brand’s US launch, what an Independent reader looks like across the pond, and why their new commercial offerings are more mission-based.

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