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Business News Digital
Spotify not limiting freemium to three months
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 18 May 2015
For a brief moment last week there was speculation that a compromise was on the horizon in the much rumoured impasse between Spotify and the majors – and mainly Universal – over the market-leading streaming service’s freemium level.
As much previously reported, as Spotify seeks to renew is licensing deal with Universal, it’s thought the mega-major has been putting pressure on the digital firm to limit its free-to-access offer, which brings in much lower royalties, and which is arguably so good it is making it hard for other digital start-ups to evolve middle-market streaming set-ups at a lower price point than £10 a month. But Spotify insists that freemium is needed to sign-up premium users, ie the people generating the main growth revenue stream for the record industry today.
So, that’s all ongoing, and last week Digital Music News cited various sources as saying a compromise was being negotiated whereby Spotify would offer freemium for just three months for new subscribers, before upselling them to a paid-for option. Which would basically be what most of Spotify’s competitors without a freemium level already do, though possibly with a longer sample period. But it doesn’t sound like something Spotify would be up for.
And it is not. The streaming service has categorically denied that this is an option being considered. Though some sources say the proposal was made by Universal and Sony, only to be quickly knocked back by Team Spotify.
