Spotify released its Q2/25 financial report. Year-on-year, the company made 53% more income, and 19% higher profit. It now has 696mn monthly users (up 11%).
Spotify’s revenue from ads decreased by 1% to €453mn (US $523mn). Daniel Ek tackled this head on in his opening remarks: “The one area that hasn’t yet met our expectations is our ads business – we’ve been moving too slowly and it’s taking longer than expected to see the improvements we initiated take hold. It’s really an execution challenge, not a problem with the strategy. While I am unhappy with where we are today, I remain confident in the ambitions we laid out for this business… we are working quickly to ensure we are on the right path.” Spotify’s VP of Global Advertising, Lee Brown, is to leave the company by what’s described as a mutual agreement.
How is video working on Spotify. In Dec 2023, the company only had 100,000 video podcasts on its platform; now, according to Gustav Söderström, there are “more than 430,000 video podcasts on Spotify and video continues to outperform with consumption trending higher and higher – growing 20x faster than audio-only consumption since 2024. More than 350 million users have streamed a video podcast on our platform, a 65% increase year over year.” These figures look impressive; but Spotify only launched their big video push in Nov 2024 – and many larger video podcasters are quietly given $5,000 of advertising to kick things off, which might mean only a temporary uplift. Later, in the earnings call, Alex Norström added that “Users who watch a podcast consume 1.5x more than users who just listen”.
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Nominees for the 2025 Ear Worthy Awards have been announced, which recognises indie podcasts and podcasters. Our editorial policy is that we don’t single out specific podcasts who get nominations, which we’re slightly regretting today. But we – by which we mean all nominated podcasters, of course – find out who’s won on Aug 26. Fingers crossed!
At the end of June, The Times of London’s Arts section had a cover story about an exciting new podcast about the downfall of EMI records. The article ends: “Music, Money and Mayhem is on BBC Sounds from July 7”. We gather that the show is made by Novel in partnership with BBC Studios: but the BBC hasn’t announced it at all, and the show has yet to appear more than three weeks later. Novel hasn’t responded for comment – but if it’s made, and it’s been promoted, and presumably paid-for, we’re curious where it is…
Good luck to our friends in UK radio today, and may the RAJAR numbers smile on you.
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Moves and hires
- Alexander Damiano Ricci is to leave his position as Chief operating officer of Europod – the Brussels-based podcast agency – at the end of this month, after 7 years. As a founding member of Europod (formerly Bulle Media), Alexander has helped developing the European podcast industry through projects such as WePod and the Sphera Network.
Tips and tricks – with Podcast Movement
- Your podcast can speak to two different types of listeners — and both can grow your brand. Vertical content serves your (B2C) audience and clients. Horizontal content connects with peers and collaborators (B2B). The magic happens when you know which lane you’re in or when to switch – it shapes stronger episodes and makes designing lead magnets way easier (and less sales). Podcast Clarity gave us this tip – and is running a two-weekend workshop starting Aug 9 to define and generate your podcast ideas, and then get planning how to make them.
Podcast News
