Spotify enhances its Spotify Memberships

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Spotify has launched Spotify Memberships, an enhanced version of its premium membership tool for podcasters. It's available to eligible podcasters hosting with Megaphone or Spotify for Creators. You can see the feature in Two Hot Takes.
- This isn't a new feature - called "Podcast Subscriptions", it's been available since Apr 2021 within the US, and as of Nov 2021 became available in 34 countries. The product was originally free, with a plan to charge 5%. The rebranded "Spotify Memberships" costs 10% - but adds a clearer in-app subscription process, member badges for comments, and different membership access tiers. Creators can download member email addresses, too. Here is Megaphone's support doc with more information.
Has Netflix forgotten about podcasts already? In its Q3 financials, podcasts weren't mentioned at all in the shareholder's letter, nor the earnings call, nor the investor video interview which they posted on, er, YouTube. Netflix revealed revenues were up +12%, but that's the lowest growth in three years. The company, which recently fired its global content chief Bela Bejaria and its movie boss Dan Lin along with laying-off 6% of its staff, acknowledged concern about view-hours growth in the US and Canada - but the things that were supposed to help with that, podcasts, didn't get a mention.
The winners of the Signal Awards were announced. There are 1,226 recognised podcasts, and 465 gold winners. The Listener's Choice Awards received more than 260,000 votes.
- Meanwhile, the nominees of the 2026 Astra Podcast Awards were announced by The Hollywood Creative Alliance. Among this year’s nominees are Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy, SmartLess, Crime Junkie, and The Daily.

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