Some podcasters raised concerns this week over a new Spotify feature that will publicly display how many plays each podcast episode gets.
The streaming service on Tuesday announced the rollout of its “Plays” metric, calling the feature “another invaluable source of insight” for creators “as they look to optimize their content for success.” But after the announcement, some podcasters — particularly those with smaller, niche followings — said they think the new feature could actually turn listeners away.
“It’s like the social media-ification of podcasts now,” said Adrienne Cruz, a podcast manager who represents four small podcasts.
Traditionally, “podcasting has been such a good fertile ground for small creators,” said Cruz. The medium, which first emerged in the mid-2000s, was a small, niche market until the industry’s first big hit, “Serial,” helped propel it into the mainstream. In recent years, simpler, personality-driven shows have taken off, giving hosts like Joe Rogan massive success across platforms like Spotify, SiriusXM, YouTube and Apple.
With Spotify’s new feature, Cruz and others said they worry the already crowded podcasting space could turn into a “popularity contest.”
“Hey!!! As one of your biggest creators — WE DONT WANT THIS! This is going to hurt so many podcasts,” “The Psychology of your 20s” podcast, which has almost 200,000 followers on Instagram, wrote on Spotify’s post announcing the news.
“Public metrics don’t support the creator community — they discourage experimentation and amplify comparison. This doesn’t help us grow; it makes us hesitate,” another podcaster wrote.
A spokesperson for Spotify declined to comment.
In its blog post unveiling the feature, Spotify said it aims to “give creators more comprehensive insight into the scale and depth of their audience.”
“For creators, plays will be a key metric on the home dashboard, show overview, and individual episode analytics pages, offering a near-immediate snapshot of how content is performing based on active engagement,” the streaming service said.
Some podcasters celebrated having more access to data.
Dr. Mikhail “Mike” Varshavski, a physician who talks about medical issues and hosts “The Checkup with Doctor Mike,” called the news “AWESOME.”
“I’ve been desperate for this feature to roll out to begin building a better understanding of what episodes are performing well,” he said in a statement sent via Spotify to NBC News. “This has been foundational to success on YouTube, studying successful videos, and now we can do the same on Spotify.”
But others responded to the news on social media by asking if Spotify would let them opt out of the new feature.
They pointed out that the listens-per-episode number would only reflect the plays on Spotify, and not across platforms, possibly misleading audiences and potential brand partners.
“This is actually a disservice to a lot of smaller shows, and it won’t reflect the other places people listen to or watch podcasts,” “Gabbing with Gib” host Gibson Johns commented on Spotify’s announcement. “You should consider letting podcast creators hide this metric.”
Cody Dueitt, the host of the “Pray Before Chips” podcast, said that while he’s happy with the base of core listeners he’s built, he thinks the feature could have a negative toll on podcasters with smaller followings.
“What about the smaller ones? … we’ve been grinding and grinding and trying to make it happen, but we only have, you know, who knows how many listeners we have, truly,” he said.
While he’s been podcasting since 2018, Dueitt estimates the most plays he’s ever gotten on an episode was about 200.
Janny Perez, host of the “Latina Mom Legacy” podcast, worried her followers wouldn’t see her reach across other platforms.
“I have a larger audience in the whole scheme of things, right?” said Perez. If brands are making their decision to work with creators based on the number of listens an episode gets, Perez said, “that could potentially hurt you and prevent you from potentially earning money.”
Spotify said plays will be rounded to the nearest thousandth or millionth. For the first 24 hours after publishing, episodes will display a “new” label instead of a play count as they build up initial listens. After that period, episodes with fewer than 1,000 plays will display
Play counts will be reflected across the Spotify app and in the Spotify for Creators and Megaphone dashboards “starting this week,” the platform said.
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