In its latest development, Spotify has made it possible for non-hosted podcasters to upload videos to the platform. According to reports confirmed to TechCrunch by a Spotify spokesperson, the new feature was quietly rolled out by the company last week.

Previously, creators who wanted to upload video podcasts to Spotify had to sign up to be hosted on Spotify for Podcasters, a free hosting platform for podcast creators, or a partner hosting company. Alternatively, creators could send video feeds and audio feeds separately, though it's not a great solution as it uploads as two episodes. Today, any creator can upload directly to Spotify via their preferred hosting service.

To use the new feature, creators need to go to the Spotify for Podcasters portal and locate the audio-only version of a podcast episode and click the three dots on the right to add a video version. Podnews first reported the rollout.

By video podcasts, Spotify has been going on for such a long time in recent years and probably just hitting the right places because more than 250,000 video podcasts now exist on the platform, from just 100,000 last year, 2023.

Ahead of VidCon next week, the company shared this new number along with other stats on video usage on its platform. For example, there are over 170 million global users watching video podcasts on Spotify, and the number of monthly active users watching video podcasts has grown 40% year-over-year. In the same period, its platform recorded a bigger increase in video consumption hours compared to audio-only consumption hours.

"Video is becoming core to the global Spotify experience," said Maya Prohovnik, vice president of podcast product at Spotify. "As the number of podcasters publishing videos on our platform grew nearly 70% over the past year, it's clear that video podcasts are resonating with users, and the appetite for video content has increased immensely across all of our major content categories on Spotify."

Most importantly, Spotify has introduced other video podcast features that benefit both the creators and listeners. An example of such a feature is "Miniplayer" which enables Premium subscribers to view videos in a smaller desktop window overlaid on other windows.

The company is indeed investing in more video content in general. As announced in March, Spotify was adding music videos to certain countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden and the U.K. The company is also testing a video education offering in the U.K., offering courses around subjects like music production.