• by Alex Weprin , June 26, 2018

Spotify named Dawn Ostroff chief content officer Tuesday, signaling an intent to make a major push into original content.

According to the company, Ostroff “will lead all aspects of Spotify’s content partnerships across music, audio and video” and will be based in New York.

Ostroff joins Spotify from Condé Nast, where she has been president of the magazine publisher’s Condé Nast Entertainment unit since 2011. At Condé Nast she was responsible for developing original video content for film, television and digital platforms. Before Condé Nast she served as president of entertainment for The CW network.

Ostroff joins Spotify just a few months after the streaming music service went public.

While Spotify is the market leader, the efforts of Apple Music, Amazon’s streaming music service and Tidal, among others, has made the market extremely competitive.

Increasingly, these companies are turning to original premium content to differentiate themselves. That content can be exclusive podcasts, exclusive music releases or even full-length TV shows (definitely in Ostroff's ballpark).

The company’s previous head of content, Stefan Blom, left in January after three years with the company.