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Spotify again signaled its interest in developing new ways to monetize its investments in podcasts. In the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, chief executive Daniel Ek suggested the streaming media company foresees a future where there will be multiple business models for podcasts, including, potentially, both ad-supported subscriptions and à la carte options.

The company, which also revealed its podcast catalog has grown to now 2.2 million programs, said it’s seen increasing demand for the audio format in recent months.

For example, 25% of Spotify’s monthly active users now engage with podcasts, up from 22% just last quarter. Podcast consumption is also increasing, with listening hours having nearly doubled year-over-year in the fourth quarter.

Today, podcasts on Spotify’s platform are available to both free and paid users and are monetized with ads. This is still a key focus for the company — Spotify even recently acquired a podcast hosting and monetization platform, Megaphone, to help make streaming ad insertion technology available to its third-party publishers while also growing its targetable podcast inventory.

But Spotify recently put its feelers out about different means of monetizing podcasts, too.

Late last year, for instance, the company was spotted running a survey that asked its customers if they would be willing to pay for a standalone podcast subscription, and if so what would it look like and how much would it cost?

At the time, the survey offered a few different concepts.

At the low end, a subscription could offer ad-supported exclusive episodes and bonus content for $3 per month. This would be similar to Stitcher Premium, which today provides exclusives from top shows and other bonus episodes. But Spotify’s suggested version included ads, while Stitcher Premium is ad-free.

A middle option suggested a plan that would be even closer to Stitcher Premium, with exclusive shows and bonus material but no ads. This even matched Stitcher Premium’s price of $5 per month. And at the high-end, subscribers could get early access to ad-free interviews and episodes for $8 per month.

A survey, of course, is only meant to gauge consumer demand for such a subscription, and doesn’t indicate that Spotify has a new product in the works. (Spotify said the same when asked to comment on the news at the time.)

However, it’s clear that investors also want to know what Spotify is thinking when it comes to recouping its sizable investments in podcasts.

Asked if Spotify thought customers would be willing to pay for podcasts, Ek on the earnings call responded that he believed there were several new models that could be explored.

“I think we’re in the early days of seeing the long-term evolvement of how we can monetize audio on the internet. I’ve said this before, but I don’t believe that it’s a one-size-fits-all,” he said. “I believe, in fact, that we will have all business models, and that’s the future for all media companies — that you will have ad-supported subscriptions and à la carte sort of in the same space, of all media companies in the future.”

“And you should definitely expect Spotify to follow that strategy and that pattern,” Ek added, more definitively.

The answer seemed to indicate that Spotify is considering some of the ideas in that recent survey — of getting consumers to pay for some podcasts, instead of accessing them all for free or having them bundled into their music subscription.

Of course, that would change the meaning of the word “podcasts,” which today refers to freely distributed, serialized audio programs that get distributed via RSS feeds.

If Spotify chooses to paywall podcasts behind subscriptions or à la carte payments, then they’re no longer really podcasts — they’re a new sort of premium audio program.

This is an area where Spotify has plenty of room to grow, considering the significant investment it has made in podcasts over the years. To date, that’s included buying up content producers like Gimlet Media, The Ringer and Parcast, as well as signing top creators like Joe Rogan, Addison Rae, Kim Kardashian West, DC Comics, Michelle Obama and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, among others. Spotify also bought podcast tools like Anchor and other ad technology and hosting services.

The advantage with podcasts is that Spotify has the ability to monetize them in multiple ways at once — with ads and subscriptions or direct payments, if it chose. And, of course, there are no licensing fees or royalties to contend with, as with streaming music.

Spotify could also adjust the podcast payments model as needed to fit its different geographies and the way customers around the world prefer to consume and pay for podcast content.

None of this thinking was about near-term launches, Ek also clarified.

“I think it’s early days, though, to specifically kind of look at how that could play out,” he said, talking about how the different models could take shape. “But, obviously, if that were to be the case, that revenue profile would be different than how we do music.”

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/spotify-hints-toward-plans-for-podcast-subscriptions-a-la-carte-payments/

The California Supreme Court today shot down the lawsuit filed by a group of rideshare drivers in California and the Service Employees International Union that alleged Proposition 22 violates the state’s constitution.

“We are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear our case, but make no mistake: we are not deterred in our fight to win a livable wage and basic rights,” Hector Castellanos, a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “We will consider every option available to protect California workers from attempts by companies like Uber and Lyft to subvert our democracy and attack our rights in order to improve their bottom lines.”

The suit argued Prop 22 makes it harder for the state’s legislature to create and enforce a workers’ compensation system for gig workers. It also argues Prop 22 violates the rule that limits ballot measures to a single issue, as well as unconstitutionally defines what would count as an amendment to the measure. As it stands today, Prop 22 requires a seven-eights legislative supermajority in order to amend the measure.

“We’re thankful, but not surprised, that the California Supreme Court has rejected this meritless lawsuit,” Jim Pyatt, a rideshare driver who advocated for Prop 22 and worked with the Yes on 22 campaign, said in a statement. “We’re hopeful this will send a strong signal to special interests to stop trying to undermine the will of voters who overwhelmingly stood with drivers to pass Proposition 22. The ballot measure was supported by nearly 60 percent of California voters across the political spectrum including hundreds of thousands of app-based drivers. It’s time to respect the vast majority of California voters as well as the drivers most impacted by Prop 22.”

Meanwhile, Uber, Lyft and other companies have said they have their eyes on pursuing Prop 22-like legislation elsewhere. Given Uber and Lyft’s anti-gig-workers-as-employees stance, it came as no surprise when Uber and Lyft separately said they would pursue similar legislation in other parts of the country and the world.

Lyft, for example, has created external organizations that push for the independent contractor classification. Two of those organizations are Illinoisans for Independent Work and New Yorkers for Independent Work. Illinoisans for Independent Work was established in June and funded by Lyft with $1.2 million, according to committee filings. The stated purpose of the committee is “to support candidates who share the ideology of our organization and the value of independent work.”

But as we’ve previously discussed, the implementation of Prop 22 doesn’t mark the end of the battle for some gig workers to achieve employee status. There is a concerted effort to keep organizing this year, and getting ready to fight back wherever the next legislative battle emerges.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/ca-supreme-court-denies-lawsuit-challenging-prop-22s-constitutionality/

Myanmar’s new military government has ordered local telecom firms to temporarily block Facebook days after the military seized power in the Southeast Asian nation in a military coup.

Several users on Myanmar subreddit reported moments ago that Facebook was already inaccessible on their phones, suggesting that internet service providers had already started to comply with the order, which demanded compliance by midnight Wednesday. (it’s about 4.30 am Thursday in Myanmar at the time of writing.)

Myanmar’s new government alleges that Facebook is contributing to instability in the country and in its order has cited a section of the local telecom law that justifies many actions for the greater benefit of public and state.

NetBlocks, which tracks global internet usage, reports that MPT, a state-owned telecom operator that commands the market, has blocked Facebook as well as Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp on its network.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move comes after days of unrest in Myanmar, where earlier this week military took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders of her ruling National League for Democracy.

Facebook, which has become synonymous with the internet in Myanmar, has long been blamed for not doing enough to curb the spread of misinformation that prompted real-world violence in the country.

A human rights report in 2018 said that Facebook was used to “foment division and incite offline violence” in Myanmar. Later in the same year, Facebook executives agreed that they hadn’t done enough.

BuzzFeed News reported this week that Facebook executives have now pledged to take proactive content moderation steps in Myanmar, which they termed as “Temporary High-Risk Location.”

This is a developing story. More to follow…

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/myanmar-orders-telecom-networks-to-temporarily-block-facebook/

Today, Andreessen Horowitz founder Marc Andreessen announced that social media product veteran Sriram Krishnan will be joining the firm as their latest general partner.

Krishnan, whose previous roles include stints at Snap, Facebook and Twitter, has gained a higher profile in recent weeks from his recurring audio show “The Good Time Show” on Clubhouse. His recent talk with Tesla CEO Elon Musk was something of a watershed moment for the audio chat platform driving plenty of new attention to the budding app.

This announcement follows a report in The Information regarding the hire earlier this week.

Krishnan’s hire comes at an interesting point for Andreessen Horowitz, the firm is at the center of plenty of chatter among media circles regarding their “go direct” content strategy. At the same time, a16z and its leadership have played an increasingly hard-nosed role in driving a broader backlash against tech media in recent years among founders and tech enthusiasts in their orbit. Krishnan has spent much of the past couple years building out his flirtations with “tech optimism” content with his interview newsletter “The Observer Effect,” his Clubhouse show and his prolific Twitter usage.

Broader “tech pessimism” among media outlets has, I think, partially been owed to a swift and outspoken shift in thinking regarding the societal responsibilities of social media platforms to more aggressively moderate the content they are surfacing on a global scale. Some of the partners at a16z, a Facebook backer, have been among the more vocal in pushing back on these critiques even as the executives at their portfolio companies have seemed more amenable to shift their thinking.

In his blog post, Andreessen notes that Krishnan will be joining the firm’s consumer team to invest in areas that include social.

Krishnan, well-regarded in tech circles, may play an important role at the firm as they approach more social investments in a world where the effects of rapidly scaled consumer platforms have become more understood. The firm and its partners have been throwing their full support behind Clubhouse in an aggressive push to promote the platform, flexing the firm’s celebrity connections and influence along the way as the platform quickly picks up millions of new users. Krishnan’s direct operator roles engaging with the product struggles of building platforms that responsibly scale will likely be an asset as the firm faces increased competition across an increasingly frothy venture market.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/social-platform-veteran-sriram-krishnan-is-andreessen-horowitzs-latest-general-partner/

The idea of a virtual concert tour might seem tailor-made for the pandemic, but musician Todd Rundgren said he’s actually been thinking about osmething like this for years.

Rundgren told me that he’d become frustrated with our “collapsing” air travel system — exacerbated by hurricanes and climate change — that increasingly left him “sitting somewhere, unable to get to my next gig.” So he was already convinced that he need to “start imagining other ways” to reach audiences.

But it was in the context of COVID-19 that Rundgren finally decided to make it happen, with his Clearly Human Tour kicking off on February 14. He’d been planning for a traditional tour, but the dates kept getting pushed back due to the pandemic, until he finally told the organizers, “You have to let me do this. I can’t be committed to you and go two years without touring.”

Rundgren and his band will be performing entirely from Chicago, where they’ll play songs from across his career, as well as the entirety of his album “Nearly Human.” But the tour is taking place virtually across 25 U.S. cities, starting in Buffalo on February 14 and ending on March 22 in Seattle.

Rundgren said he found this more appealing than the idea of performing “one show and then blast it out to everybody.”

“People plan weeks or months in advance for this particular event, it attracts people from all over the metropolitan area or a particular region,” he said. “It’s a social event as much as anything else, and that’s what we are trying to do with the localization.”

That means performing live shows at 8pm, according to whatever the local time zone might be. Rundgren said the band will also try to “self-hypnotize” to get into the proper spirit: “We’ll dress all the walls with posters, sports team memorabilia … We’ll get food flown in from familiar local eateries.”

Other features include virtual meet and greets with local fans, as well as placing video screens around the concert venue to display virtual audience member. (There are a limited number of in-person tickets for sale as well, but obviously those attendees will need to be in Chicago.)

The concerts will be geofenced, although Rundgren said the approach has evolved — it’s less about limiting the Buffalo concert to Buffalo attendees, and more about enforcing geographic restrictions based on Rundgren’s contractual obligations. Or as he put it, “It’s less about enclosing an audience, and more about fencing them out.”

Image Credits: Todd Rundgren

Rundgren is staging the tour with support from NoCap, the livestreaming concert startup founded by musicians Cisco Adler and Donavon Frankenreiter. NoCap has been around for less than a year, and Adler said that while it sold 700 tickets for its first show, it’s now selling “30, 40, 50 thousand tickets” per show. And he predicted that virtual concerts won’t be going away when the pandemic ends.

“There are all these underserved markets that you can visit once every five years, if that,” he said. “The future of this becomes a hybrid model.”

After all, he noted that televising sports has only made them “bigger and more global.” Similarly, when Adler was thinking about livestreaming concerts, he said, “I didn’t look at it as: How do we build a Band Aid and help everyone through this gap? It was more: How do we build a bridge to the other side of what music can be?”

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/03/todd-rundgren-clearly-human/