Spotify unveils beta programme featuring music videos

Spotify, an audio streaming service, has announced a significant expansion of its offerings by introducing music videos to its platform.

The company is rolling out a beta programme, providing premium subscribers access to a curated selection of music videos for certain tracks by popular artists such as Ed Sheeran and Ice Spice.

This expansion aims to offer users a more immersive experience across various devices, including mobile, desktop, and TV.

Sten Garmark, Spotify’s Vice President and Global Head of Consumer Experience, shared insights on this development, stating, “We’re starting with a small sample of the whole catalogue, which includes thousands of music videos. Within this subset, we tried to prioritise a diverse mix of genres and artists from our launch markets.”

With competitors like YouTube and Apple Music already offering extensive libraries of music videos, Spotify’s move is seen as a strategic effort to remain competitive in the market and enhance its value proposition for users.

To access a music video, Spotify users simply need to click the “switch to video” option on the currently playing screen while listening to a song. The video will restart the song from the beginning, offering users the flexibility to seamlessly switch between audio and video modes.

The beta programme is available in select countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. However, access to music videos is exclusive to premium subscribers in these regions.

Speculation regarding Spotify’s venture into music videos began last July, following internal restructuring within the company. While this marks the first official confirmation of music videos on the platform, anecdotal evidence suggests that the feature may have been in testing for some time, with reports from users as early as three months ago.