Rogers has extended its partnership with Spotify and will now offer access to the ad-free paid tier of the music streaming service, Spotify Premium, as part of its “Share Everything” mobile plans.
The move follows the inclusion of the service in plans for the Rogers-owned Fido brand, which rolled out back in April.
On Monday, the companies two CEOs, Rogers’ Guy Laurence and Spotify’s Daniel Ek, briefed the press on the details of the partnership. The hour-long conversation – over a bowl of Spotify-green smarties – spanned everything from how the two companies will work together, what the explosion of streaming means for Rogers and the state of the music industry.
The main message: streaming is here to stay. As recently as a year ago, Ek said many consumers he spoke to talked about wanting to own media. Today, he says few consumers care whether they own content or have access to stream it on demand.
Laurence listed several Nielsen stats to illustrate the streaming boom, including the fact that Canadians stream 24 hours of music per week on average. He also said 75% of Canadians have tried streaming music – and 95% of those trials were on mobile phones.
For Rogers, the growth in streaming represents a thriving revenue stream: selling data. As other services that once justified the price tag of mobile plans drop in their perceived value, Rogers is attempting to recoup that value loss by shining a light on the content customers can consume with their phones via data.
“There’s underlying demand for data. People want to watch video and listen to music on their phones. We want to encourage that,” Laurence said, “On a lot of plans these days, voice is virtually free, texting is virtually free. You’ve got to pay the bill somehow, so we’re paying it through the monetization of data.”
“We think the mobile industry was stupid when it started talking about megabytes instead of talking about content,” he continued. “We’re trying to shift the argument from megabytes – which means nothing to anyone – to content, and we’re using it as a way of monetizing our business.”
Instead of making that money via overage fees, Laurence said the company is focused on upselling customers on pricier data-heavy plans, moving consumers up on the “data ladder without giving them any nasty surprises.”
Laurence said he expected the Spotify Premium offer to result in both a boost to Rogers’ subscriber base as well as its customers’ data usage.
Ek, meanwhile, opened up about Spotify’s growth in Canada since it entered the market 10 months ago. He said Canada is currently the company’s fastest growing market and has made in-roads from coast to coast including Quebec, which accounts for 25% of its overall streaming. “We’re off to a running start and we feel really good about our progress,” he said.
Since its launch in Canada, Spotify has lured in ad dollars via its ad-supported free tier as well as content partnerships like the contest it ran with Jim Bean in July. In May it also launched its first major ad campaign that focused on playlists inspired by Canadian neighbourhoods.
