The media landscape is rapidly changing, one 30-second video at a time.
What happened: Spotify is rolling out a new feature for free and Premium users where you can clip segments of podcasts within the app and share them with others. The tool looks pretty straightforward: just select the area of interest and press a new scissors icon.
Why it’s happening: The feature certainly seems like a response to the rise of the “clipping economy” — a phrase that has taken off this year to describe the vast network of people who make short-form clips of long-form content, either for promo or monetization purposes.
Unsanctioned “clippers” make money by generating views on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, posting affiliate links on their clips, or working for “clipping agencies.”
Clippers can also be commissioned to make clips either by marketing agencies or directly by creators, many of whom have in-house clippers ready to pump them out.
Why it matters: Clips were once meant to tease or preview longer content. Online media has now reached the point where podcasts and streams are primarily a means to generate clips, which rack up far more views, impressions, and attention than their full-length sources.
Clips are also eating into traditional advertising streams. For example, the campaign for L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt has spent nothing on TV airtime but cut a US$30,025 cheque to a clipping agency.
Zoom out: Clips are now building burgeoning media empires. Case in point: OpenAI recently bought business-tech news show TBPN for a rumoured price tag of ~US$200 million. While the average episode only gets around 7,000 viewers, the average clip racks up 257,000 views, according to research by Prof G Markets — that’s a 37-fold increase.—QH
