You might be able to watch music videos on Spotify someday. The music streaming giant is reportedly in talks with industry partners to bring full-length music videos to its app. Anonymous sources familiar with the company’s plans confirmed the development to Bloomberg but didn’t name the partners that Spotify is in talks with.
Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service. But, despite its massive global popularity, the company has failed to bring videos to the platform. It tried to create original series several years back and also worked with media companies such as Paramount Global and Vice Media to offer TV content. But those plans didn’t work out.
Currently, videos on Spotify are limited to podcasts (the app has more than 100,000 podcasts with video) and short storytelling clips. The latter clips are 30 seconds or shorter videos that allow artists to communicate with their audience about their music. You can also count those 10-second looping GIFs that show up on the screen when listening to music as videos, but that’s all.
Spotify hasn’t given up on video efforts
However, it appears the firm hasn’t given up on video efforts. As pointed out by Bloomberg, videos tend to be “more lucrative than audio” today, so it’s understandable that Spotify wants a piece of this market. Some music services, such as Apple Music, already have videos. YouTube and TikTok, on the other hand, started with videos and have expanded to audio. The former’s YouTube Music app now offers full-length music videos, while TikTok is reportedly looking to expand its music streaming service Resso.
Spotify is now aiming to steal some Gen Z audience from YouTube and TikTok, both of which have established themselves in the short-form video space as well. The company recently launched a TikTok-like home feed to help users discover music and podcasts. But its ultimate plan is to expand to videos. Not only would it make Spotify an all-in-one streaming service, but also give the company a new revenue stream amid an economic slowdown. It laid off around 800 employees this year to reduce operations costs.
Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a timeline for the potential public release of Spotify’s video product. Perhaps the company is still planning, or the feature is in the early stages of development. It may take a while to materialize. We will let you know when we have more information. Meanwhile, Spotify is gearing up to add a Hi-Fi streaming tier later this year. The lossless audio quality is expected to arrive in the US in October.