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Starting March 13th, Spotify is integrating music videos into its library in 11 countries including Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands, Poland, Philippines, Sweden, and UK. Spotify has reportedly been working on this addition since July last year. Notably, the music videos are currently further limited to premium subscribers who are in beta. Spotify says that they have chosen the markets based on the market size and availability of local content support.
A “Switch to Video” button will appear on the “Now Playing” screen
If you happen to be from one of the countries and also meet the other criteria, you will see a “Switch to Video” button on the “Now Playing” screen for specific content. Clicking the button replaces the album image with the video, which starts playing from the beginning. You can rotate the phone to landscape and enjoy the video. The video is reportedly ad-free, unlike YouTube at least now in the testing phase. Just like how you switch to video, you also get an option to switch back to audio.
Notably, Spotify is hosting the music videos itself instead of working with any other service provider. Now you might have been thinking about royalties associated with the videos. Well, the music streaming giant was asked by TechCrunch about this matter, but as of the time of writing, it has not yet replied.
Music Videos are also available on TVs
Spotify says that music videos are also available on TVs where it might prove a lot more helpful. Likely, the initial collection of video content is limited on the platform. As The Verge notes, currently supported artists include Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, Ice Spice, Aluna, and Asake. With the public rollout of this feature, you can expect Spotify to include content from a wider variety of artists.
“In our initial beta rollout, we’re starting with a limited subset of the full catalog, which includes thousands of music videos. Within this subset, we aimed to prioritize a wide range of genres and artists across our launch markets,“ said Sten Garmark, Spotify’s VP Global Head of Consumer Experience.
It’s good to see Spotify is catching up with other streaming services like YouTube Music and Apple Music, both of which have video content available at this point. For those unfamiliar with the platform, it has been offering video podcasts and Clips (short vertical videos). So, it previously had what it takes to host videos to a global audience as well.
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