Spotify is bringing another format to listeners’ ears: narrated articles. Starting Tuesday, more than 650 long-form magazine articles will be available (in English) to Spotify users where audiobooks are available. The curated collection of narrated articles, produced the Spotify Audiobooks in-house team, the includes stories from publications including Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vogue, Billboard, Vibe, GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, Pitchfork and Variety.
The Spotify narrated articles are available within Premium subscribers’ monthly audiobooks allowance, alongside its existing audiobook library. Users on Spotify’s free tier can purchase individual articles for $1.99 each. Each narrated article is less than 2 hours long; they use a mix of human and digital voice narration and the portion of the articles using AI-generated voice narration will be clearly labeled for users.
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Articles from Variety available in the new section include Ramin Setoodeh’s “Ryan Gosling on Nearly Turning Down Ken” (available at this link on Spotify); Trish Deitch’s “The Confessions of Keri Russell” (at this link) and Daniel D’Addario’s cover story on Kate Winslet (at this link).
“With Articles, we’re introducing long-form journalism in audio as a natural extension of the music, podcasts, and audiobooks people already come to Spotify for, focused on topics we know they love,” said Colleen Prendergast, licensing lead for audiobooks at Spotify, in a statement. “By bringing shorter-form content into the mix, we’re meeting audiences where they are to help build healthy listening habits, ultimately growing engagement with books over time.”
Julian Holguin, CEO of Rolling Stone, said in a statement: “We’re thrilled to partner with Spotify in what we see as a natural synergy between two platforms that celebrate music and culture. This collaboration with Articles allows us to deepen the connection between our readers and the artists, stories, and features they care about, while also providing an opportunity for discovery. By making Rolling Stone’s journalism more accessible on Spotify, we’re excited to bring our storytelling to an even wider audience.” (PMC, the publisher of Variety, also owns Rolling Stone.)
According to Spotify, the narrated articles will let users “trial shorter, less-intimidating listens, opening the gateway to explore longer-form listening like books.”
Spotify launched audiobooks in the U.S. in 2022. Since then, it has expanded to 22 markets grown listening hours 60% year over year, according to the company. Spotify says it has continued to “invest in an underserved industry” with new features such as Page Match, Recaps and Follow Along.