Sponsored by Supporting Cast. The shows you listen to probably already use us. 🎙️ Supporting Cast powers subscriptions for some of the most trusted names in podcasting—because when your business depends on subscriber trust, the platform behind it matters. Let's talk about what we could build together. Supporting Cast has become, it claims, the first podcast subscription platform to deliver gated, subscriber-only podcast video on Spotify. The company launches the new feature with two shows - Libero, a football podcast, and Legacy, a history podcast. Partnerships with Goalhanger, Vox Media, Jim Harold's Campfire, Filmspotting and Betches Media will follow later this quarter. While video was launched on Apple Podcasts earlier this year, it's currently not possible to offer paid subscribers on Apple Podcasts any access to video. Supporting Cast is our title sponsor this month; we suspect we'd have made this #1 story today even without that. LATER: They're not first, say competitors Supercast, who say they have had creators publishing video using Spotify’s Distribution API since April 27th. That service is now fully rolled out for all Supercast creators. We're happy to make that clear. In The Ankler's Like & Subscribe newsletter, Spotify's global head of podcasts Roman Wasenmüller is interviewed. Wasenmüller talks about the reversal of the company's exclusive shows - "we now have more ability to find new audiences for our content across all platforms and also monetize it to the same extent, instead of just monetizing on Spotify" - and revealed that the reason Spotify leant into video was that "We were struggling with driving audience growth into audio-only podcasting. It’s saturated. Video just unlocked completely new discovery mechanisms on the platform." When asked what a podcast is, Wasenmüller admits he doesn't know; but suggests it's still an audio-first format. "Video’s an added layer, but the format only works if it’s also consumable just in audio." There's more behind the paywall. NPR, National Public Media and PRX announced a collaboration in sales and distribution. NPM can provide sponsorship sales for series and shows using Dovetail, PRX's publishing and monetisation platform. > > > Read more of today’s podcast industry news stories on the Podnews website: and get our free daily newsletter.Classifieds - your job or ad hereMake your episodes do more — Adding chapters to your podcast make episodes easier to understand, easier to remember, and easier to act on. PodChapters makes adding chapters easy and it takes only seconds.