As streaming services become more and more ubiquitous across society, the more their moves will have an impact on the music industry and the tech world at large. Swedish streaming giant Spotify is reportedly plotting a move into the crowded web video business. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify has been reaching out to several different media players about potential partnerships. Some of these companies specialize in creating content for YouTube and are looking to acquire content and co-create original video series.
In addition to some of these new media companies, Spotify has reportedly reached out to some larger, traditional media companies as well.
There aren't many details about what a "Spotify Video" would look like, but the company did announce today (May 7) that they would be holding a media event on May 20 for an undisclosed reason. It seems logical that the streaming service would make an announcement about the move to include video on their platform at that time.
Spotify will be stepping into an arena that is dominated by big-name players like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, who all deliver video content to millions of users.
Spotify continues to grow at a remarkable rate, raising another $500 million and elevating its valuation to a whopping $8.4 billion.
The move to video could be in response to other streaming services like TIDAL and Beats Music who are attempting to wrangle away their users with the promise of exclusive content. This would be their way of creating exclusive content without playing a zero sum game with musicians.
Spotify has not specified how it will deliver content on a freemium vs premium basis or if they are going to reserve the content they create, like a Netflix original series, to just premium subscribers as a way to drive those numbers.
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