Spotify’s Newest Weapon in the Creator Wars: Paid Membership

Spotify once ruled podcasting. Then YouTube came along and changed the game, turning the audio-first business into a video free-for-all and forcing Spotify to rethink how it keeps its most valuable talent — and their fans — close.

Now the streaming giant has a new weapon in the increasingly fierce competition for creators: paid memberships.

Starting yesterday, podcasters can sell subscriptions directly through Spotify, offering everything from bonus episodes to ad-free listening. It’s a direct challenge to platforms like Patreon, which have spent years helping creators turn their most devoted fans into paying customers.

Will creators bite?

I spoke with Spotify’s head of content partnerships and several podcasters getting in on the launch, including a network general manager who says an earlier Spotify monetization program quadrupled its revenue on the platform. Their answers offer an early look at whether Spotify can turn its enormous audience into something creators increasingly want: a sustainable business.

Plus, WME is making its own bet on the creator economy, investing in a behind-the-scenes startup to help talent build and operate businesses that once would have required a Hollywood studio or network.

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Spotify’s Move Into Creator Memberships

Morgan Absher has nearly 1 million followers on Spotify, where they listen to her comedy podcast Two Hot Takes. But three years ago, when Absher was looking to launch a membership program for her most devoted fans, she had to set it up through a separate platform, Patreon. Now, Spotify is launching a new feature that will allow her to offer paid subscriptions on its app.

Through Memberships — first announced by Spotify at its investor day in May and available starting yesterday to creators in the U.S. and more than two dozen other countries — podcasters can charge their listeners a monthly or annual fee for access to bonus content, ad-free episodes and other perks.

Absher tells me the memberships she offers through Patreon have already become “a big part” of her revenue from podcasting. Now she’s introducing a monthly bonus episode exclusively for fans who sign up for a $4.99 per month membership through Spotify.

“People just want more content, so that’s what I’m offering,” she says, adding that she’s seen memberships help to grow the community around her show.

Spotify has been aggressively building new programs to attract top creators to its platform to compete for top talent in a market down dominated by many big players. Last year, it began sharing both advertising and subscription revenue with podcast partners and paid out more than $100 million during the program’s first quarter. Memberships are a way “to help creators build sustainable businesses,” says Jordan Newman, Spotify’s head of content partnerships.

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WME Wants to Be More Than Agent to Creators

As the signing news coming out of the Hollywood talent agencies lately makes abundantly clear, creators are the hottest commodity right now in a town desperately in need of a good story to tell. From the Love Island signing rush to Alex Cooper’s high-profile departure from UTA, competition is fierce for the talent landing blue-chip brand sponsorships, nine-figure podcast deals or Netflix greenlights. Now one of the Big Three agencies has majorly expanded its services for digital clients.

WME a couple weeks ago unveiled a new operations team, dubbed Creator Labs, that sits inside its digital media division with the aim of helping clients (both internet-native and traditional) build and scale digital video businesses. As part of the announcement, the agency revealed an investment in a stealthy three-year-old company, Astra Media, that works with talent on digital video strategy and execution. I got on the phone with Ben Davis, co-head of the digital media department, and John Holdridge, Astra’s co-founder and CEO, to find out more about what the team-up means.

Davis tells me the investment is part of a rethinking of how WME services clients. “Agents are great at making deals or providing general advice, but agencies historically don’t have the ability to execute in supporting a client’s business, a digital direct-to-consumer business, day to day,” he says, noting that for years clients have come to WME’s digital media team, which he co-leads with Jad Dayeh, looking for help operating their YouTube channels or newsletter businesses.

Typically, WME would refer them to a third-party vendor and guide them in cobbling together a support system. Now, “We have to be the platform to help [talent] go direct-to-consumer and then the platform to help them realize the value of the rights that they previously would’ve given up to studios or networks.”

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Disney inked a wide-ranging creative partnership with Dude Perfect, which joins a growing roster of creators in business with the House of Mouse including Dhar Mann and Like Nastya (in addition to podcasters like Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, whose Las Culturistas streaming deal I reported on last week).

Issa Rae’s HOORAE debuted its second microseries, reality dating show The Compatibility Experiment with host JaNa Craig, on TikTok, which also announced a deal with Made By Us Studios for creator-led verticals.

UTA elevated seven people to its Creators leadership team and announced that revenue tripled over the past five years.

Lilly Singh is back on YouTube.