Spotify now lets you mix tunes and talk with podcast playlists

By Simon Cohen September 30, 2019

Playlists are the lifeblood of the Spotify service. How popular are they? There are more than 3 billion user-generated playlists, according to the company. Well, get ready for that number to grow considerably: Spotify has added the ability to create new playlists of podcasts, as well as the option of adding podcasts to existing music-only playlists.

Given Spotify’s huge focus on podcasts, the move isn’t surprising. Getting its subscribers to listen to more podcasts is clearly a part of its strategy here, and Spotify has previously said that it wants to be about more than just music. “Over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content.” But the company also says its customers have been asking for this feature.

It’s not the first time Spotify has experimented with the idea of mixing podcasts with music. Earlier this year, the company created a limited-availability playlist called Your Daily Drive, which did just that, as a way of mimicking the morning format that is so popular among listeners of terrestrial radio. With the ability to add podcasts to playlists, users can make their own Daily Drive experiences — perfect for road trips, as Spotify correctly points out.

The new feature also helps to keep Spotify one step ahead of the competition. In September 2019, YouTube Music cloned one of Spotify’s most popular playlists with its version of Discover Weekly. Copying music-based features that Spotify has popularized is low-hanging fruit, relatively speaking, but podcast-based playlists could be a lot harder to duplicate — especially if the podcasts in question are owned by Spotify.

The new playlist feature is mobile-only for now, at least in terms of playlist creation. Once a new podcast-based playlist has been created, it can be streamed on any Spotify-compatible device. Here’s how it works:

Navigate to a podcast episode you want to add to a playlist.
Tap the three dots to the right of the track or episode.
Tap “Add to playlist.”
Select a playlist you’ve already created you like to add it to, or, tap to create a new playlist from scratch.

Once you’re happy with your creation, you can share it with all of the usual folks, just as you would with any other playlist, and if you are a Spotify user, you should not miss out on the Premium version.

Topics

Contributing Editor, A/V

Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…

Audio / Video

What is Spotify? Music, pricing, and features explained

Spotify app library screen.

Spotify is the first name that comes to mind when you think of music streaming services. Love it or hate it, Spotify is currently the most popular music-streaming service, boasting 615 million users and more than 239 million subscribers, putting it ahead of competitors like Apple Music. But what exactly is Spotify, and how does it really work? We're answering all your questions with this deep dive into what you can expect from Spotify.
What is Spotify?

If you spend even a little time online, you've probably heard of Spotify. It's a popular free and paid music-streaming service founded in Stockholm in 2006 by Swedish friends Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Fun fact: the name happened by fluke when the partners were shouting names back and forth from different rooms in Ek's Stockholm flat, and Ek misheard one of Lorentzon's suggestions as "Spotify." They later backtracked the meaning as a combination of spot and identify, and there you have it.
Spotify today is a behemoth of a streaming service that also offers access to podcasts, videos, and highly tailored playlists driven by your unique usage. With several plan tiers to choose from, Spotify's free version lets you listen to unlimited music, podcasts, and even videos, so you can explore your taste without shelling out a thing, but you do have to endure ads and limited functionality (more on that below). It does offer much more robust paid options (more below, too), but the free version is more than enough for the casual listener.
Spotify is also quite device-versatile, so you can use it on your smartphone, tablet, computer, laptop, TV, smartwatch, gaming console, and even in your car. You get the expected, intuitive controls like play/pause, next/previous, loop a song/playlist, and save favorites. But that's not all. There's a lot that Spotify offers, so let's break down what you can look forward to.
Spotify features: music, podcasts, audiobooks, and more

Audio / Video

How much is Spotify Premium, and can you get a deal?

An iPhone with the Search section of the Spotify app on it.

Spotify gives you access to an incredible amount of music (more than 100 million songs), podcasts (6 million) and audiobooks (350,000) -- so it's no wonder the music streaming service has become culturally ubiquitous, with well over 239 million subscribers as of 2024. That's more than both Apple Music and Amazon Music.

If you want to get the best of Spotify, you'll want to sign up for a Premium account that, as of June 2024, for new subscribers, costs $12 a month for an individual membership. There are also subscription options for two people (Spotify Premium Duo, $17 a month), families (Spotify Premium Family, $20 a month), and students (Spotify Premium Student, $6 a month).

Audio / Video

Spotify HiFi could finally be coming, but it’ll cost you

Spotify on an iPhone.

We know you've been burned before, but according a promising report from Bloomberg, Spotify is poised to announce a new premium add-on later this year that will finally deliver its much-anticipated HiFi option, as well as some new playlist creation tools.

Although Bloomberg's report, which cites a "source familiar with the plan," is light on specific resolution details, it says that the new high-fidelity audio option will be sold as an add-on for existing customer,s who could be charged at least an additional $5 per month depending on their base plan.