The news: Spotify expanded its Partner Program to open the door for more creators to monetize on the platform, per a blog post.

The criteria for eligibility is now:

• 2,000 streaming hours in the past 30 days, down from 10,000 when the program launched a year ago.
• 1,000 unique audience members over the past 30 days, down from 2,000.
• Three all-time published episodes, down from 12.

The lower thresholds give newer creators the opportunity to monetize their podcasts through premium video and ad revenues.

Spotify will also roll out new sponsorship tools in Spotify for Creators and Megaphone in April to simplify switching out sponsors in video episodes, scheduling updates, and monitoring metrics. The upcoming Spotify Distribution API will help creators participate in the program without migrating content from other hosting platforms.