Deezer: Own Goal

Not ones to take their eyes off the ball, streaming service Deezer has added live football commentary and podcasts to its audio offering.

‘Deezer Football’ will launch in the UK and Germany, featuring commentary of Premier League and Bundesliga games alongside match fixtures, live updates, results boards and football-related playlists. Imagine a playlist of Match of the Day music. It would be awful.

Chief content and product officer at Deezer Alexander Holland said: “Football is a major passion for many of our listeners, and we wanted to find a way to bring them closer to what they love. Our new dedicated Football section means that fans can easily stay on top of match results, listen to live games, and catch-up on the latest podcasts”.

Holland continued, ramping up the sales pitch: “With Deezer Football you now have access to even more of your favourite audio content in one place”.

Deezer has been making moves beyond music since the purchase of podcast company Stitcher in 2014, with 20,000 podcasts now available In addition to the service’s music library.

The addition of live, premium sports content builds on Deezer’s existing news, talk and entertainment offerings. Deezer purchased Stitcher in 2014 and launched full podcast integration in May of this year, with 20,000 sitting alongside its library of 35 million music tracks. Deezer’s talk offering is currently available in the UK, France and Sweden with more markets rolling out this year.

However, it was recently reported by Music Week that half of Deezer’s 6.34 million paying users could be classed as ‘inactive’- meaning users who had Deezer bundled into mobile phone contracts but hadn’t played a single stream in the last month.