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- Spotify and record labels have been hyping "superfan" tiers for some time
- Spotify's Daniel Ek now appears to be managing expectations: it's not arriving imminently
- He says they need their partners to work with them on it
Has Spotify shelved its own 'Superfan' subscription tier? It certainly sounds like it: during the streamer's latest financial earnings call, Daniel Ek responded to a question about "a Superfan product" by saying that the existing subscription plans on offer were "plenty enough for us".
As we reported back in February, Spotify was expected to launch a "superfan" premium tier this year; record company bosses and Ek have talked about it a few times, and in November 2024 Ek responded to a question about it by saying, "I can’t get into specifics, but I think I’ve left enough breadcrumbs for you guys to get excited by."
The most likely reason for the sudden downgrade in the excitement department? Record companies and concert promoters.
What's stalling Superfan?
When asked "can you share more details about what makes you enthusiastic about the product and when it may be available in the market?", chief business officer Alex Nostrom replied:
"Now with regards to higher tiers, we see great potential in them as we've mentioned before. So creating higher tiers around new offerings is something we are working towards as a really opens up new opportunities to delight users matters. A new value-to-price ratio, if you will. And of course, we need alignment and support from our industry partners to offer these kinds of new experiences to our users."
Daniel Ek then explained how the superfan concept could be "a huge part for the music industry" but "this is really one where I would put, again, the emphasis is for the superfan, we do need the partners to come to the table and be part of this journey."
You don't need to be a weatherman to work out which way the wind is blowing here: everybody thinks superfan tiers will make a ton of money and the record companies want the lion's share of it.
According to Hypebot, Spotify – and other streamers – have also tried to get ticketing giant Live Nation on board so that superfans would get early access to concert tickets.
That could be a really big deal, because presales are big business. But Live Nation doesn't seem particularly excited at the prospect of getting yet another presale partner on board.
Asked about such deals, CEO Michael Rapino using a lot of words where he could probably have just shrugged instead: "Spotify and Apple and Amazon, they’ve approached us, we’ve talked to them all, about ideas on if they wanted inventory. There’s a cost to that and we would entertain and look at that option if it made sense for us in comparison to other options we have for that presale which is a very valuable asset.”
So until that impasse is, uh, passed it looks like there will be a wait for these new kinds of subscriptions. Ek said in the earnings call, "I think you should expect for the near term and midterm growth […] just working on our existing subscriptions, the family plans, all of these things [are] plenty enough for us."