Spotify Podcast Stats: Now Showing Listener Counts

Spotify Introduces 'Plays' Metric to Enhance Podcast Discovery

YouTube currently leads in the podcasting arena, however, Spotify is diligently striving to reduce the difference. A recent advancement in this effort is a new functionality that displays the number of times a podcast episode – whether audio-only or video – has been actively engaged with by listeners or viewers.

New Podcast Metric: 'Plays'

The streaming service unveiled its novel podcast measurement, termed “plays,” on Tuesday. This allows users to identify the most listened-to or watched podcast episodes. It represents the initial instance where a metric of this kind will be visible to both podcast creators and the general user base.

The 'plays' count will be displayed alongside each podcast episode throughout the Spotify application. This includes locations such as the homepage, the individual episode page, and the overall show page.

Boosting Podcast Exploration and Creator Insights

Spotify intends for this new podcast metric to motivate users to discover podcasts they might not otherwise consider, particularly those episodes that demonstrate high popularity among other listeners.

For podcast creators, this data provides valuable insight into which episodes are most successful in capturing audience attention. Crucially, it also enables them to compare their performance against others in the podcasting landscape.

Spotify's Subscriber Growth

This announcement comes after Spotify reported its first-quarter earnings. These results showed an increase of 5 million premium subscribers, bringing the total to 268 million.

This represents the second-highest subscriber total ever recorded for Spotify, and the largest increase during a first quarter since 2020.