United Airlines passengers can now access over 450 hours of curated Spotify content directly from their seatbacks, thanks to a new partnership between the streaming audio giant and the airline.
The integration, which rolls out this month across more than 130,000 seatback screens, includes playlists, audio and video podcasts, and audiobooks. In addition to the embedded entertainment, United flyers on Starlink-equipped aircraft can stream Spotify content from their own devices throughout the entire flight, including during taxi, takeoff, and landing, for no extra charge.
While United is not the first airline to form a pact with the Swedish streamer, this deal does mark the first time that Spotify’s video podcast and audiobook formats have been made available onboard an airline. Late last year, Emirates revealed it would add Spotify-curated playlists and over 140 podcast episodes to its inflight entertainment system.
Looking ahead, United and Spotify companies previewed a 2026 expansion that will allow users to log in directly to their Spotify accounts from the seatback screen, allowing passengers to sync their personal playlists and pick up podcasts, audiobooks, and music where they left off before boarding.
United Airlines MileagePlus CEO Richard Nunn said, “Spotify has a huge audience and people love their content. And now our customers can enjoy it all in a simple and easy way, at 35,000 feet. Together, we’re giving millions of customers an entirely new way to experience and explore premium content from the world’s most popular artists, authors, and podcasters, all while flying with the latest technology in the sky.”
Spotify VP Business Development Ian Geller added, “As a frequent United flyer myself, it’s incredibly exciting to see Spotify now available on the world’s largest airline. At Spotify, we’re dedicated to being everywhere our users are, giving creators opportunities to reach new platforms and engage different audiences. I’m especially looking forward to bringing an even more personalized app streaming experience to seatbacks next year.”
Radio CEO’s…this is another wake up call.
This is how masterful strategic thinkers operate.
Spotify just formed a stunning strategic partnership that will invite passengers in flight to try their content giving them access to hundreds of thousands of new listeners.
United Airlines flies 140 million passengers per year to 300 destinations in 6 continents. Spotify also refined their app to be more engaging with intuitive content suggestions to help listeners stay put for even longer.
Spotify was formed in 2006 in Sweden, but did not finalize licensing deals with American record labels and launch in the US until 2011. According to Marketwatch.com, Spotify’s market capitalization is over $142 Billion. Their shares closed yesterday 6/11/25 on the NYSE at $709.14. Spotify’s stock is up over 54% in 2025 so far.
The combined market capitalization of the top three publicly traded radio groups in the US is less than $270 million. Again, Spotify’s market capitalization is $142 billion.
If you invested money in Spotify shares on January 2nd, 2025, you would have considerably more money today. If you invested in shares of the top three publicly traded radio groups in the US on January 2nd, 2025, let’s just not even go there. My intention isn’t to embarrass anyone, but to use this moment of Spotify’s unparalleled success in the Digital Audio space to learn something from it.
Spotify generated over $16 Billion in 2024 revenue and delivered a profit of over $1 Billion. Those are staggering numbers considering how many radio groups didn’t generate a single dollar of profit in 2024 and are sliding backwards in revenue in 2025.
It begs the question:
What is so deplorably broken about the way radio and all of its incredibly powerful platforms are presented in today’s advertising marketplace that 100 years into its spectacular history, it struggles mightily to sustain any substantial revenue growth momentum and garner more respect among advertisers? (I have my theory, but it’s a question EVERYONE should ponder.)
There is literally no excuse for failing to grow OVERALL, COMBINED radio revenue—not just digital revenue. If you’re selling the most powerful single stage and multi-stage marketing weapon in the world, you’re either growing revenue, or you’re failing. It’s really that simple. The moment you think there’s some rational explanation for revenue growth failure and net income losses…is the moment you’ve given up your belief in and understanding of radio.
Advertisers are blowing twice as much money on pay per click ads in a single month as they spend in the entire radio industry in an entire year—and it’s not even clear where those clicks come from. Let that sink in. Do you know what a click farm is? You should, if you sell advertising in 2025. This should stun the radio industry. Does it?
If you’re leading a radio group that’s struggling today, at what point do you have to stop and think, “Maybe we should take a harder look at how we market our products because we’re literally being blown off the entire marketing battlefield right now and it’s getting worse.”
“Maybe doing things pretty much the same way since 1971 isn’t such a great strategy.”
“Maybe we’ve become a little stale in our thinking and allowed too many ‘radio lifer’ managers to hang on to some outdated habits and mindsets from the past that are clearly not working today as our sagging revenue pacing report so clearly illustrate.”
“Maybe we should take a moment to evaluate every aspect of how we do things and collaborate with our staffs constructively to find the best way to do things so that each department is set up for long term success.”
“Maybe our employees have some great ideas that they have not been encouraged to share, or have been hesitant to speak up about. We should ask them, then use them.”
“Maybe we actually do have some toxic managers that really need to go, but no one is willing to risk their career to speak up about them. Maybe we should have a way for employees to do this quickly and discreetly without any repercussions—and encourage them to do this.”
“Maybe we should pick up the phone and talk to some advertisers once in a while and ask them what we can we do better to help them reach their goals and make their life easier?”
“Maybe we should stop firing a bunch of people and re-assigning managers because it has clearly done nothing to advance our companies for years now. We still went bankrupt. Maybe we should just support and empower people to succeed instead.”
“Maybe we should understand and embrace the concept of Best Practices for each department and tap into the intelligence and insights from our own employees to thoughtfully and carefully improve our processes instead of allowing chaos and inefficiency to linger.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t solely look to other radio people for advice. Maybe we should aim a little higher and look at the most well managed companies in the world—like Apple, Amazon, Nvidia… They all sell things too, but they do it on a level and in a way that leads to multibillion dollar quarters of profit. How do they do that?”
“Maybe we should find out.”
Radio’s best days could and should be ahead as the demand for more quality audio content continues to explode and more people are wearing noise canceling headphones each day. They clearly want more to listen to and they clearly listen to way more content today than ever before in history. Podcasts proved that people are begging for more content. This will only continue.
I like that trend. It spells CASH on a level that no one could imagine. But, you can’t keep using outdated approaches to sell audio advertising today. You can’t keep tossing people on the street without any training and demanding that they bring back orders. That’s barbaric. That’s 1971. That’s yesterday. THAT is crushing revenue pacing reports daily.
The question is, who will prepare and equip their team for today’s media landscape marketplace? Who will have managers who will lead from the front by example and close deals in the field with their sellers? That’s training and selling combined in a single stroke. Who will continue to tolerate managers who stare at a screen in their office all day? Who will take it up a few notches to be better, faster and stronger than their competitors?
The industry has never been as demoralized and unprepared to close business as it is today, right now. You can buy into that, or go seize the most perfect storm moment in radio advertising history to expand your market share immediately—by carefully training for it, then executing. Who’s developing a world class training process for their sales teams right now to give them the razor sharp product knowledge and general media expertise edge they need, the tools and the confidence to go rip the cover off the ball?
Crickets…
Come on, CEO’s you’re better than that. Let’s see your best stuff moving forward. You’re intelligent, respected and capable—and you sit on top of the most powerful collection of tools on earth to build brands, move mountains and create empires…with thousands of highly capable people ready to make it happen.
Here’s to a considerably better second half of 2025 and beyond.