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That’s what the Spotify CEO said on Axios’ Re:Cap podcast Wednesday following the company’s earnings report. Ek said he’d be very surprised if podcasting became as big as radio because most of the listening on radio is still music even though it has other formats.
Ek also said he doesn’t believe we’re nearing the end of free podcasts with the addition of so many paid platforms for shows, including Apple recently adding subscriptions. He believes media platforms will have more variability than we’ve even seen so far because you have many different types of creators that are in different stages of their journeys. “Some creators are in the earlier stages. For them it makes more sense to try to give away their content in order to build an audience. For other creators that have, maybe not a large audience, but a very dedicated one, having a paid podcast may make a ton of sense. And for some, even the combo of both may make a lot of sense. I think we’re going to get even more sophisticated.”
Ek also said that in the future more podcasters are going to want to get paid to podcast but doesn’t believe the model will be the same (one-to-one) as it is with music now. He believes it will be a mush more complicated relationship between consumers and creators.
You can listen to the entire podcast with Daniel Ek HERE.