For 10 bucks a month, Spotify Premium on a mobile device is already a solid deal. You can listen to nearly whatever you want, wherever you want. You can download playlists and tracks to your phone to make sure the music keeps playing during your subway ride.
With the announcement of new features at an event in New York City today, that 10 bucks looks like it will stretch a lot further. Spotify is expanding well beyond streaming music, adding TV shows and original video content, podcasts and radio shows, new discovery tools, and an electronic jogging buddy to its mobile app.
Spotify wants to be the one-stop entertainment OS for your smartphone. The service is augmenting its vast music selection with streaming video, talk radio, podcasts, and improved recommendation AI. If you’re going to pay $10 a month, you might as well have access to everything. It’s a first step toward making video- or music-only streaming services look limited in comparison.
While music remains Spotify's focus, the service is expanding to add podcasts and radio shows---and these might be the biggest deal-sweetener for many subscribers. They include shows from BBC Worldwide Radio, CBS Radio, Radiolab, This Week In Tech, and The Nerdist. A few new Spotify original audio shows will also be in the mix, including artist-DJ’d playlists, celebrity interviews, and new-music roundups.
The launch video offerings are solid, but don’t cancel your Netflix, Amazon Prime, or HBO Go subscriptions just yet. The streaming service will include clips and full shows from ESPN, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, ABC, NBC, BBC, Vice Media, and Conde Nast Entertainment, among others. Spotify won’t have all the shows from all those partners, but the list is fairly extensive.
With a concentration on short-form clips and TV episodes, the Spotify video offerings look to be more of a rival for Hulu and VOD than movie-streaming services. But like Netflix and Amazon, there will be a few original Spotify video shows. Logically, they’re music-focused, including a “Dance Move of the Day” series hosted by Amy Poehler.
A lot of this new content will be part of Spotify’s latest “Now” recommendations. Based on the time of day---”Early Morning,” “Afternoon Commute,” and so on---the recommendation engine will serve up Spotify-curated mixes, your favorite podcasts, and your own playlists. The engine is also designed to learn your preferences over time, honing those suggestions to match your daily activities and favorite tracks.
Runners get their own entire section of the Spotify overhaul with a set of features billed as Spotify Running, which is geared toward matching music to your own pace. While you’re running, the app uses your smartphone sensors to recognize your tempo, then dynamically creates a playlist of songs that syncs up to your speed in terms of beats per minute. Spotify also says it has created a new file format that can change its tempo based on your running rhythm; there will be a few Spotify-composed selections that change to match your tempo in real-time.
“There’s a profound change happening in music,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek during the announcement. Ek pointed to the growth of streaming as a entertainment-delivery mechanism while physical-media sales and downloads are dwindling. “It’s happening on your phone.”
According to Spotify, the new features will show up in the iOS app first, and Spotify Running and the Now recommendation engine could appear as soon as today. They'll also be available for the free, shuffle-only version of the mobile Spotify app as well as the paid version.
Spotify did not specify when the new features would be available on Android, but the company did say the video and podcast features are planned for their other app platforms, such as set-top boxes.1
1Update 5:00PM EST 5/20/2015: This story was updated to add follow-up information from Spotify on pricing plans and the availability of all the new features on non-mobile platforms.
