Yahoo Finance Apple launches paid-for podcast subscription service
Apple has made a push into paid-for podcasts, allowing users to subscribe to advertising free versions of the audio shows and intensifying its rivalry with Spotify.
The iPhone maker announced that it would allow podcast creators to sell subscriptions through a redesigned app, with Apple itself taking a cut of up to 30pc, from next month.
It came as Apple sought to continue a winning streak of successful hardware launches with a new iMac computer, high-end iPad Pro and AirTags, a device that lets iPhone owners keep track of items like keys and suitcases.
Apple was an early backer of podcasts, letting users download shows to their iPods as early as 2003, and its own Podcast app remains a major portal for the booming industry.
However, it has so far not followed Spotify and Amazon in selling access to exclusive shows or producing original content.
At a virtual event on Tuesday, the company unveiled a service called Podcast Subscriptions which it said would let creators charge monthly or annually for access to individual shows or “channels” that could include multiple podcasts.
It will take a 30pc cut of subscriptions, or 15pc after the first year, a fee structure similar to app subscriptions. While most podcasts are currently supported by advertising, subscribing could mean shows without adverts, extra episodes, or receiving episodes before they are more widely published.
It is one of Apple’s first pushes into the so-called “creator economy”, a booming industry in which individual artists, writers and public figures sell their work to fans. However, some of the podcast makers to sign up at launch include established media brands such as NPR, the Los Angeles Times and sports outfit The Athletic.
Apple’s new iMac and iPad Pro will include the company’s M1 chip, an Apple processor first unveiled last year that uses technology designed by Britain’s Arm, rather than Intel, long seen as the standard in computers.
