Spotify Introduces Plays, a New Way To See What Content Is Resonating With Podcast Fans

At Spotify, we always seek ways to connect users with their next favorite podcast episode. We also work to give creators a deeper understanding of how content resonates with audiences. That’s why we’re introducing plays, a new podcast metric designed to help users see, directly within the app, which podcast episodes are most popular with fans.

For creators, plays are a helpful addition to their existing metrics and offer a more comprehensive view of the scale of all episodes on our platform. This will be another invaluable source of insight as they look to optimize their content for success, so they can continue to build a loyal fan base that comes back week after week.

Plays will capture engagement across audio and video content on Spotify, reflecting the number of times people have actively listened to or watched any episode. 

Starting this week, plays will be reflected across the Spotify app and in the Spotify for Creators and Megaphone dashboards.

A closer look at plays for creators

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. And because we want to give creators more comprehensive insight into the scale and depth of their audience, we’re also making consumption hour metrics available to all creators in Spotify for Creators, no matter where they’re hosted.

Existing monetization eligibility criteria and payout calculations for creators and publishers will remain unchanged. They will continue to be determined by streams and the podcast advertising industry standard of at least 60 seconds of engagement. For more details about how plays will work for creators and publishers, check out the latest on the Spotify for Creators blog.

Ultimately, plays will offer creators and their fans a clear way to measure which podcast episodes capture the most attention on Spotify. We’re always working to bring better insights to creators, foster greater discovery for people, and help content reach even wider audiences. Stay tuned for more.