As Spotify makes its big push into video podcasting, the company is moving further away from its exclusivity era and partnering up.
Starting in January, Spotify’s The Ringer Studios struck a deal with Netflix to bring select podcasts to the streaming platform. While the move may not ultimately convert all viewers into Spotify subscribers, the idea is to draw in incremental audiences as podcasts now compete against all types of media and possibly chip away at YouTube’s dominance.
“You have to think about it as you’re just trying to gain audience, especially in 2026, when everybody is just fighting to grab your attention at all times, all these different ways. To just assume you’re going to get people just to come to you, is, I think, naive,” said Bill Simmons, founder of The Ringer and Spotify’s Head of Talk Strategy.
Simmons told The Hollywood Reporter the streamer had first inquired about working together on The Rewatchables, the Ringer’s film podcast, for a 10-episode or so run. Along with Roman Wasenmüller, Spotify’s vice president of podcast and video, the Ringer team decided to explore a bigger deal.
The move comes a little more than a year after Spotify ended its exclusive distribution model for podcasts. For several years, Spotify’s shows weren’t distributed widely and the streamer was doling out big checks to keep names such as Alex Cooper and Joe Rogan exclusive to their own platform, as the company built up its podcast operations. But faced with heavy investment costs (and unhappy investors) and creators wanting to reach wider audiences, the company ended the strategy.
Moving out of that, Simmons, whose company was acquired by Spotify in 2020, pushed for the broader Netflix deal, arguing that they needed to follow the consumer, and putting more shows on Netflix would help grow audience numbers.
“You kind of can’t tell people how to consume something. You almost have to work with them. It’s like a negotiation,” he said.
The initial lineup of Ringer shows on Netflix include The Bill Simmons Podcast, which premiered live on the platform in Jan. 11, The Zach Lowe Show, The McShay Show, The Rewatchables, Conspiracy Theories and more. iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports have also struck deals with Netflix. Good Hang With Amy Poehler, which is The Ringer’s most popular podcast, is not part of the Netflix deal.
While the goal is to build a new audience for these shows, and ultimately have them crossover to Spotify, Simmons acknowledges that some Netflix viewers may not ultimately make the leap. But he doesn’t believe it will draw people away from Spotify and instead will reach a percentage of their audience that did not know these podcasts existed and possibly sway them. Video episodes still stream on Spotify as well.
With The Rewatchables, Simmons said the team will also be able to request titles for Netflix to license that the team will discuss on the podcast. In turn, the idea is to have Netflix show a popup for the podcast once a user has finished watching that film. The Ringer also upgraded to 4K resolution for its shows.
There is a financial incentive in the partnership. Geoff Chow, managing director of The Ringer, says they have a “financial agreement that’s beneficial to everyone” but declined to provide further details. Bloomberg reported that, for example, Barstool is earning more than $10 million a year from its deal. Netflix is not running ad breaks with these shows, but the advertising that’s already integrated in the shows remains.
But as part of the deal, full episodes of these Ringer shows will no longer run on YouTube, cutting off the episodes from the most popular podcasting platform. A big part of Netflix’s own goal in bringing podcasts onto its platform was to compete with YouTube, and to increase time spent on its platform. Netflix not allowing the podcasts on YouTube has been a turnoff for some podcast creators across platforms.
Simmons argues that having the episodes on Spotify is enough, as “odds are, if you have YouTube, you have Spotify.” Clips of the episodes are also still on YouTube. And he sees an advantage to partnering with Netflix.
“With YouTube, you’re trading off something for something every time, but Netflix actually cares about having us on the platform. They’re promoting us. We’re working with them. We’re innovating with them,” Simmons said. “YouTube has kind of this attitude, like, you’re lucky to be on YouTube, which congrats to them, but I’m not sure how long that’s sustainable.”
Still, YouTube has a massive presence in the podcasting world, with more than 1 billion monthly viewers for its podcast content worldwide as of February 2025. By comparison, while Spotify does not break out its monthly viewership for podcasts, the company said “more than 390 million users have streamed a video podcast on Spotify” as of its third quarter of 2025, which marked a 54 percent increase year over year.
Spotify has been expanding up its own video podcast efforts, by broadening eligibility for its paid creator program and partnering with independent podcast hosting platforms to allow their shows to monetize their video podcasts on Spotify. Asked about how the company views YouTube, Chow said: “I don’t think it’s a one-to-one competition. I think we can grow the pie everywhere.”
Even so, while YouTube is a behemoth in the podcasting world, there is a sense that it’s accidentally fallen into that position. Amid that, there may be somewhat of an opening for other players, even as it remains hard to compete with its overall media dominance and with creators’ desire to be on YouTube.
“YouTube is not a destination for seeking out content and consuming it. It’s algorithmically served to you. And so I think it’s amazing for podcast discovery. I don’t think it’s the future for podcast consumption,” said Greg Glenday, CEO of podcasting platform Acast.
Moving forward, as podcasters increasingly compete for audience’s attention with TV shows, movies and other social media, Simmons said he believes that it won’t be the same free-for-all it was in the past, when anyone could launch a podcast. In turn, he sees the number of podcasts decreasing and the bigger, more committed players outlasting the others.
“The serial error is that the companies, and I’d include Spotify, are just way more leery of writing checks for podcasts if you’re not sure that somebody’s 100% committed to doing it. We saw this era where podcasts became one of the four or five things somebody was doing and a great way for them to get paid,” Simmons said. “But based on trial and error, I think those days are over. And if you’re going to do this and you’re going to compete in the podcast big leagues, you have to take it seriously and really care about it. And if you don’t, it’s not going to work.”
One example of that for Simmons is Good Hang with Amy Poehler, which the Ringer launched in March and has gained major traction, as well as a Golden Globe. Simmons says he and his team were confident in the podcast because of Poehler’s talent and enthusiasm for podcasting, as well as the “specific piece of turf” they felt she could take in the podcasting world based on the data they had collected. (“We were probably more certain that was going to work than anything I’ve done since ‘30 for 30.’” Simmons said).
The Ringer does not have a quota on the number of originals it will launch each year, but Simmons said his team is continuing to think about launching new shows when there’s an identified niche and a creator who is committed to the show. They’ve also been working to change the story around Spotify (“I don’t know if the narrative was great for us in 201 and 2022) from a platform that just writes paychecks for podcasts to one that brings more value. And there are plans to do more live events.
On deck, his team plans this year to relaunch The Hottest Take, which was formerly an audio-only podcast where Simmons and others debate controversial topics, in a video format to better showcase the celebrity guests debating.
Episodes of that podcast were typically already seven to eight minutes, which he says could also be a trend as the different types of media compete for audience attention.
“Maybe that’s something that in 2026 makes a ton of sense. That’s how we feel. I guess we’ll find out, because it’s shorter attention, fast, looks good,” Simmons said. “Maybe that’s the evolution of some of the stuff that’s going to happen.”
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