In Spotify’s rapidly evolving quest to become the home of everything audio-related, the company announced on Tuesday that it’s bringing narrated long-form magazine articles to its app. The articles will be available to Premium subscribers as part of their 15 hours of audiobook listening time per month. Free users can opt to purchase standalone articles for $1.99.
The streaming service said that, starting today, there will be over 650 long-form magazine articles (available in English only) from a collection of stories that includes publications like Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vogue, Variety, Billboard, Vibe, GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, and Pitchfork. Spotify says the articles were produced in-house by its audiobooks team and complement Spotify’s existing audio offerings, like podcasts.
Spotify tells TechCrunch that the narrated articles will use a mix of human and digital voice narration and that the portion of the articles using digital voice narration will be clearly labelled for users.
Beyond being another means of bringing monetizable audio to its app, Spotify believes the addition of articles could encourage users to try a different type of listening beyond music, which could ultimately lead them to try other forms of long-form listening, like its potentially more profitable audiobooks.
