Spotify and Apple, two companies not known for playing nice, are building shared video podcast infrastructure. Spotify announced Thursday it will adopt Apple's HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) video technology for its creator platforms later this year, alongside a separate distribution deal live today with five hosting providers. The HLS integration means creators using Spotify for Creators or Megaphone will be able to publish video podcasts to both Spotify and Apple Podcasts from a single setup, without changing their workflows. Spotify says it is "actively working on this integration in coordination with Apple" and will share timeline details soon.
Apple deployed HLS for Apple Podcasts in February 2026, shipping the upgraded experience to iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, and the web by the end of March. The standard delivers video in adaptive segments, adjusting quality in real time based on available bandwidth, which means less buffering and fewer quality drops for listeners on cellular connections.
Spotify will also support "monetization for video content on Apple Podcasts so creators don't have to choose between audience reach and revenue," the company told 9to5Mac. How cross-platform ad revenue will work remains unclear.
Spotify says it will share details soon, but the mechanics of splitting ad dollars between two competing platforms with different fee structures have not been resolved.
Separately, Spotify activated its video Distribution API for five podcast hosting platforms: Libsyn, Podigee, Audioboom, Audiomeans, and Podspace. Creators on those services can now push video directly to Spotify and earn through the Spotify Partner Program without switching hosts. That integration is live starting today. The API launch is the first public activation of infrastructure Spotify announced in January 2026. It gives third-party hosting platforms three capabilities: video distribution to Spotify, monetization through the Partner Program, and video-specific analytics.
Partners can choose which features to surface in their own products. The two announcements affect different groups of creators. The Distribution API is for creators already hosted on third-party platforms who want Spotify video monetization. The Apple HLS integration is for creators using Spotify's own tools who want to reach Apple Podcasts audiences. Together, they suggest Spotify is trying to become the monetization layer for video podcasters regardless of where their content lives.
More than 390 million users have streamed a video podcast on Spotify as of November 2025, and the platform counts over 530,000 video podcast shows. Spotify lowered Partner Program eligibility thresholds in January 2026, cutting the required listener count from 2,000 to 1,000 and reducing episode requirements from 12 to 3, moves designed to bring smaller creators into the monetization system.
Notable omissions remain. When Spotify announced the Distribution API in January, Acast and Omny Studio were named as planned launch partners.
Neither appears in today's rollout. Spotify has not explained the delay.
