Amazon Prime now comes with a full music catalog of 100 million songs and ad-free podcasts
Amazon at present introduced a brand new profit for its Prime members which may lure some subscribers away from different music providers, like Apple Music or Spotify. The corporate mentioned it’s going to now provide Prime subscribers a full music catalog with 100 million songs, as an alternative of the beforehand extra restricted choice of simply 2 million songs, and can make many of the prime podcasts on its service accessible with out advertisements. As well as, the Amazon Music app is getting a revamp, which features a new “Podcast Previews” characteristic that may permit prospects to hearken to quick clips as a approach to uncover new podcasts they could like.
The transfer is a direct shot at streaming music opponents, particularly Spotify, which has been shifting into the podcasts market as a way of producing further income. However Spotify’s paying subscriber base is rising annoyed with the truth that they nonetheless should hearken to podcast advertisements, regardless of paying for the service. Amazon Music’s promise of ad-free podcasts together with a full music catalog may make for a compelling various, the retail big hopes.
Picture Credit: Amazon
Among the many ad-free podcasts are exhibits from prime manufacturers like CNN, NPR, The New York Instances, and ESPN.
Different ad-free exhibits embrace the Wondery catalog of podcasts, like “Dr. Loss of life,” “SmartLess,” and “Even the Wealthy,” and new Amazon Unique exhibits together with “MrBallen Podcast: Unusual, Darkish & Mysterious Tales;” “Suspect: Vanished within the Snow;” “COLD Season Three: The Seek for Sheree;” “Killer Psyche Day by day;” “I Hear Concern,” narrated by Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan; and a weekly bonus episode of “The Outdated Man and the Three,” hosted by former NBA participant JJ Redick. The Amazon Unique podcast sequence “Child, that is Keke Palmer,” from the actress and entrepreneur Keke Palmer (NOPE) additionally debuts at present.
Amazon, in saying the information, acknowledged that Prime Music’s extra restricted catalog was not the massive promoting level for shoppers it as soon as was.
“When Amazon Music first launched for Prime members, we supplied an ad-free catalog of two million songs, which was utterly distinctive for music streaming on the time,” mentioned Steve Increase, VP of Amazon Music, in a press release concerning the launch. “We proceed to innovate on behalf of our prospects, and to deliver much more leisure to Prime members, on prime of the comfort and worth they already get pleasure from. We are able to’t await members to expertise not solely a massively expanded catalog of songs, but in addition the most important choice of ad-free prime podcasts wherever, at no further value to their membership,” he added.
Along with the growth of the service and ad-free podcasts, the Amazon Music app will achieve a brand new look, most notably with the launch of the brand new Podcasts Preview characteristic. This enables prospects to hearken to a brief soundbite from a podcast episode to assist them decide as as to whether it is one thing they want.
Prime members will use the primary Amazon Music app to entry the total music catalog, Amazon says. The app additionally affords commonplace options like the flexibility to shuffle-play any artist, album, or playlist, stream customized playlists, obtain songs for offline listening, and extra. Whereas Prime members will not be capable to stream music on-demand with out upgrading to the paid tier, the bigger catalog could make sense for extra informal music listeners preferring a extra lean-back expertise.
The corporate’s beforehand broader music service, Amazon Prime Limitless, will not be going away. The service, which prices for $8.99/month or $89/yr, will give customers entry to all songs on-demand in HD (16-bit/44.1 kHz) and UHD 24-bit/44.1 to 192 kHz) high quality throughout all units. Plus, this premium tier affords tens of millions of songs within the spatial audio format.
The modifications observe Amazon’s transfer to boost the annual worth of its Prime free transport program earlier this yr from $119 to $139, elevating issues that Prime membership is changing into too costly — significantly given the present financial local weather the place shoppers are scuffling with the price of items and gasoline. Whereas Amazon has added different advantages in latest days, like a Grubhub+ membership, a big music catalog may make for a greater promoting level if it permits prospects to cancel one other music subscription and make a swap.
further reporting: Ivan Mehta
