Spotify plots TV push

Internet-powered music service Spotify is planning to make a bigger push into the living room, with more smart TV apps and set-top deployments in the works.

Speaking to DTVE ahead of his keynote panel discussion this morning at TV Connect, Spotify’s global head of platform partnerships, Pascal De Mul, said that the firm was “was working hard to enable Spotify on TVs.”

“I think the TV is a great interface for the music experience in the home. It’s the only interface with a huge screen that can have real visual impact, as well as just audio impact,” said De Mul.

“Whether that is done through connected TVs as they get better and better, through games consoles or other means – we’re willing to work with any device that can create that great experience,”

Spotify launched an app for Samsung TVs last year and De Mul says that the firm is now working with “a number of manufacturers” to expand this further – provided the manufacturer is willing to work with Spotify to meets its customer experience standards; firms that “don’t just see music as a couple of bits and bytes that need to make it to a device.”

In terms of set-top deployments, Spotify is looking to build on the relationship it has with the likes of Virgin Media in the UK, whose TiVo box customers are able to download a Spotify app to their set-top box.

De Mul says the architecture it has for this app will make it possible to deploy onto different boxes and that Spotify is “already working with a couple of the set-top box players in the world to see how that can happen.”

The firm is also looking to build more partnerships with TV and mobile service providers, to offer simpler ways for users to sign-up and be billed for their Spotify account. The firm has already partnered with the likes of KPN in the Netherlands, Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Orange in Switzerland in a bid to make the service more accessible.

“What we are working on is making music as easily available to everybody. We have a full catalogue of 20 million tracks, we have instant availability on mobiles, on desktops, and we are working very hard to enable Spotify also on TVs and on audio equipment,” said De Mul.

The news follows Spotify’s recent announcement that it has reached 6 million paying subscribers and 24 active users globally. De Mul notes that the freemium-model firm is growing by roughly 1 million users a month and a million paying subscribers per quarter and is aiming for even higher growth rates by the end of the year.