Spotify adds music videos in 11 countries

Spotify has added music videos to its mobile, desktop, and TV apps in 11 countries. At launch, videos by Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, Ice Spice, Aluna, and Asake were among those available.

This is not the first time Spotify has added video, albeit in shorter form. The streamer already hosts short videos of artists talking to fans dubbed Clips and Canvas – short looping song and album graphics.

Starting today, “thousands” of full-length music videos are available to Spotify Premium subscribers in the UK, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands, Poland, Philippines, and Sweden. The US is not part of the initial launch.

When listening to a song with a video hosted by Spotify, a button on the Now Playing screen offers the option to “Switch to Video.”

“For this beta rollout, we chose these markets based on a number of criteria, including market size and the availability of local content support,” Spotify’s VP Global Head of Consumer Experience, Sten Garmar told TechCrunch. Stay tuned as we hope to expand the catalog of music videos and increase availability to more countries.”

Rebirth of Music Videos?

Prior to today’s launch, full song music videos were at a crossroads.

A study by Chartmetic showed falling fan interest in full song videos and record label reluctance to fund them. Plus, UMG and the NMPA have not renewed their TikTok licensing deals.

For now, Spotify’s video push is limited, and fans unwilling to pay still have to head to YouTube.

But when Spotify’s video push inevitably goes wider, artists and labels will again be confronted with the need to invest heavily in engaging video content.

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.