Spotify introduced final week that it will roll out public play counts on all podcasts as a approach of “helping attract new fans.” However podcasters swiftly responded with criticism of the brand new characteristic — primarily, that it will additional promote podcasts that have already got massive audiences whereas making smaller exhibits much less interesting to new listeners.
On Friday, Spotify changed course on its plans, however didn’t utterly eschew the thought. Now, play counts will solely seem on exhibits with not less than 50,000 performs every. As an alternative 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 advanced model of play counts over the approaching week,” the corporate wrote in a blog post. “This replace displays our evolving efforts to offer the perfect 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 reputation — Apple Podcasts, for instance, has had critiques 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.
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 present information 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 subject for extra area of interest creators.
Podcasters have additionally expressed frustration with the dearth 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 determine a transparent metric for what’s outlined as a “play,” creating extra consistency for dealmaking amongst podcasters and advertisers. However based on 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 customary.
Spotify mentioned that play counts will consult with the variety of instances “individuals actively tried” the content material, whereas streams and downloads solely depend after 60 seconds of engagement.