Podcasters rejoice, you can now ask your listeners to leave you a rating on Spotify, bringing parity with a feature long available via Apple Podcasts.
In an announcement today, Spotify said it is introducing a 5-star system for podcast ratings, which will give new listeners the opportunity to see how a podcast is viewed by the community, in comparison with the other 3,199,999 shows available on the platform.
If you’re done looking at your Spotify Wrapped for 2021, you can do your favourite shows a favour and big them up to the masses.
The company already offers charts and personalised recommendations, but user ratings are well overdue. It’ll help with podcast discovery and let listeners support their favourite shows. It’s not clear whether Spotify will take this into consideration when choosing what podcasts to showcase to users, but that’s likely the way it’ll go.
“By introducing ratings, we’re making it easier for listeners to decide when to try out a new podcast that might be their next favourite,” the company said in a blog post announcing the feature. “Because podcast ratings will serve as the first chance to draw new listeners in, they have the potential to build instant interest.”
The feature is rolling out to all users where Spotify offers podcast and you’ll see it in the coming days.
Elsewhere today, Spotify confirmed it has acquired a company that turns radio shows into podcasts. The Whooshkaa service will help Spotify bring more third-party audio to the platform, while supporting content creators through its advertising network.
“We believe the worldwide growth potential for digital audio is still largely untapped. Through the addition of these new tools as well as the innovative team behind them, we are reinforcing our commitment to helping creators, publishers, and advertisers realise the value of this opportunity,” Spotify’s chief content officer Dawn Ostroff said. “With Whooshkaa, we will strengthen our efforts to help audio publishers of all kinds grow their podcast business and scale our ability to help advertisers reach their audiences.”
