Spotify has announced that its podcasting platforms — Spotify for Creators and Megaphone — are adopting Apple’s technology for video streaming, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Apple shared in February that it was adding support for HLS to its own Apple Podcasts app with the release of iOS 26.4, so Spotify hopping aboard means that formerly Spotify-exclusive video podcasts can be distributed to Apple’s app.
HLS is proprietary tech that’s developed by Apple, which means it’s naturally not open in the same way RSS is, and it could concentrate power in the podcast industry in a way it wasn’t before. That possible negative comes with a positive: it’s generally convenient for users when big companies all agree to use the same standard. Microsoft, Google, Twitch and more use HLS. Adding Spotify to that list is not necessarily a bad thing.
Spotify doesn’t have an official timeline for when Spotify for Creators and Megaphone will implement HLS, but did confirm that audio-only RSS podcast feeds will be available for anyone listening through an app that doesn’t support it. Spotify is also opening up who can distribute to Spotify via its Distribution API, which is now officially supported by podcast hosting platforms Audioboom, Audiomeans, Podigee, Podspace and Libsyn. Supporting the API allows platforms to distribute video content to Spotify, use the company’s video monetization programs and view its video analytics. Whether they’ll offer all of Spotify’s features is up to them. The company says “API partners can choose which of these features they’d like to support in their platforms.”
