Spotify Is Trialling Putting Sponsored Songs In User Playlists

Swedish streaming giant Spotify is looking to ease its revenue woes by trialling the inclusion of sponsored songs in user playlists, according to reports.

As BBC explains, the music platform boasts a user base of 140 million — about 50 million of whom pay to use the ad-free service — and brought in €2.9 billion (about $4.27 billion) last year, but is yet to turn a profit. Its 2016 losses were reported at €539.2 million.

As a result, the company is evidently seeking out new ways to bolster its income streams, and its inclusion of promoted songs in playlists — whereby labels will secure priority exposure for an artist's song, for a price — is both a way to monetise the segment of its user base who do not pay to use the service, as well as being part of its ongoing "testing [of] promotional tools that deliver the highest relevancy to our users", according to a statement from the company.

Initially spotted by TechCrunch, the sponsored songs feature will only appear to users in Spotify's free tier; those who are paid subscribers will not see the ad, which appears above a given playlist and is apparently tailored to individual tastes.

It's not the company's first flirtation with sponsored content, either, with the company having previously opened up its own popular playlists to sponsorship deals with other organisations.