Spotify has built a business for itself in music streaming, podcast entertainment and audiobooks. Now, in its ongoing efforts to get its 600 million+ users to spend more time and money on its platform, Spotify is creating a new content stream: e-learning.
Starting with a UK launch, Spotify is testing the waters for an online education offering freemium video courses. Produced in partnership with third parties such as the BBC and Skillshare, at least two courses will be free, with the cost of a full course ranging from £20 to £80 on average. The prices will be the same regardless of whether you are a basic or premium user, at least for now.
Mohit Jitani, the product manager for the London-based education business, said in an interview that the pricing options were part of what it was testing before thinking about how to roll it out more widely. “With this release, we’re trying to understand the demand first,” he said. “Then we’re fine-tuning how we can make it more exciting and compelling.”
The content will be on both the homepage and Spotify navigation tabs (under the “Courses”) and is accessible on the network as well as through the Spotify mobile app.
Lessons fall somewhere between YouTube, Master Class and LinkedIn Learning: The videos in the current catalog cover a wide range of topics, from music production to learning to use Excel, as well as lessons on — you guessed it — how to create online learning courses to turn musicians and others into “creators of education”.
Not surprising for a purchase that was estimated to be worth it more than $315 billion in 2023there are many online learning sites on the web these days, some of which are innovative in interactive content and other forms of media — you can even find a number of startups that aspire to be the “Spotify for education” if you search for that term on Google — Spotify’s educational push is focused on one-way, on-demand video.
Some courses appear to have supplemental material, although this will be more in the realm of extra papers rather than tests or other interactions. Jitani declined to comment on whether Spotify will launch any kind of interaction or gamification in the future — or, indeed, whether games of any kind are on its roadmap right now.
The first course partners are Skillshare (which will focus on creatives), PLAYvirtuoso (music industry courses), BBC Maestro (Master Class-esque) and Thinkific (for those inspired to develop their skills in their online learning courses).
Spotify, Jitani said, will look to curate what lessons it offers and base curation on what people are already listening to and searching for on its platform. However, there seems to be no limit. If you look at the catalogs of these respective providers, you’ll see that the topics cover quite a wide range — and bread.
“We’re going to learn a lot about what people really care about [and] we’re going to start having a lot of segments around that,” Jitani said. “And then we’ll go and find … the best content.”
Third-party publishers own the videos and license them on Spotify, but they will be hosted and purchased on Spotify itself. In terms of revenue share, the creator, publisher and Spotify will all receive a share of sales, with content partners overseeing payments to creators.
Spotify did not specify what kind of cut would go to whom, or whether it would potentially offer some kind of discount or other benefit to users who are already premium subscribers to the platform.
Why education? Why the UK?
The move signals Spotify’s strategy to continue to diversify its business, while also aiming to chart a path to more stable profitability and stronger margins. He chose the UK for this, Jitani said, because it is a huge market for the company and is already one of the most engaged in the world.
Financially, Spotify continues to see a lot of ups and downs in the current market. He went through three rounds layoffs last year; and has been more unprofitable than profitable over the years, most recently posting a net loss of $81 million in its quarterly earnings at February.
Yes, the dry spheres of online learning and professional development might sound like an approach for a company still best known for streaming music, but there are three areas where it makes sense.
As the podcasting business continues to grow, Spotify is collecting a lot of data about what people are doing on the platform and finding a close correlation between some of the most popular podcasts on Spotify and educational content.
About half of Spotify Premium subscribers have listened to educational or self-help podcasts, Spotify says. Spotify can use the same kind of suggestions it uses for music and podcasts to cross-promote. Consider a podcast with a “business guru” who is now offering a paid course with that person. Spotify is betting that one will help sell the other.
Alongside this, Spotify has long been working on tools for creators to help them manage and grow their earnings. Offering educational content aimed at running a business or improving your music production fits right in with this.
Third, there is the video component. Spotify has been trying to delve into video for the better part of a decade.
That hasn’t yet translated into a rival to YouTube or Netflix. Video was mentioned once overall in the company’s latest earnings call, where CEO Daniel Ek vaguely described the video podcast as “growing in a healthy way.” However, it did release music videos in select markets earlier this month, and now we’ve got a serious push for video tutorials. He can still find his groove.
