Replacing Spotify's Daily Drive news
Daily Drive mixed short news updates into your Spotify music. If it has gone, rebuild the news half with Lissin and keep Spotify for the music.
The short answer
Listeners reported Daily Drive disappearing from Spotify in March 2026, and Spotify has not announced a replacement that mixes news into your music. Lissin can take over the news part: describe the stories you follow, pick a morning time, and a freshly researched briefing is waiting each weekday. It plays no music, so keep a Spotify playlist for that.
How to choose
Split what Daily Drive combined
Daily Drive was a Spotify playlist: songs from your listening history, with a short news update every few tracks. Nothing else rebuilds that exact mix. Keep the music in Spotify, as a playlist of your own or Spotify's other personalised mixes, and get the news from a separate source you control.
Follow the news shows it was made of
Daily Drive's updates came from publishers' own podcasts, such as NPR News Now, BBC Minute and PRI's The World. Search for the ones you remember and follow them directly in Spotify or any podcast app. That is the closest like-for-like replacement, and it costs nothing.
Ask for the briefing you actually wanted
Daily Drive chose the news for you. In Lissin you write the request: "Ten minutes before my commute: the overnight headlines, then anything new on the Denver housing market and the Broncos, and skip celebrity news." Each episode is researched again from the open web, so it covers what changed since the last one, and it lists its sources.
Set it to arrive before you leave
Choose daily or weekdays and the time you want it. Lissin sends a notification when the episode is ready, and on Plus or Pro you can download it for listening without signal. It plays in the background with lock-screen controls, so it works over your car's Bluetooth like any other audio app.
At a glance
- Daily Drive
- Reported missing by listeners from March 2026. No official retirement notice found
- What it mixed
- Music from your listening history with short news podcast updates
- Spotify's own AI briefings
- Announced in May 2026 as personal podcasts and scheduled briefings from a prompt
- What Lissin replaces
- The news: a researched spoken briefing on the topics you name, with sources
- What Lissin does not replace
- Music. It plays no songs from a music catalogue
- Cost of a daily briefing
- Daily and weekday delivery need Plus, $9.99 a month. The free plan makes one starter show
Hear what comes out
Shows already published on Lissin, free to play in the browser.
Questions
- Is Daily Drive coming back?
- We don't know. The reports of it disappearing come from listeners and secondary coverage, and we found no Spotify announcement either way. If it is still in your Spotify library, it has not gone for you.
- Can Lissin play my Spotify music between news stories?
- No. Lissin does not play music from Spotify or any other catalogue. Its episodes are spoken, sometimes with a soft background sound, and it can generate original songs as a separate format.
- Can it cover local news, weather and traffic?
- It researches published news for the places you name, so city and regional stories work when outlets cover them online. It is not a live traffic or weather service. Check those in a dedicated app before you leave.
- How long is each briefing?
- You choose. Lengths run from 5 to 25 minutes depending on plan: up to 10 on Free, 15 on Plus and 25 on Pro.
What this does not do
Lissin replaces the news in Daily Drive, not the music, and nothing here recreates the single mixed playlist. Creating a show needs an iPhone on iOS 26 or later. A briefing is written from what is published online when it runs, so a story that breaks after that waits for the next episode, and you should check names and figures against the source before you act on them.
Sources
Make your own show, or hear a sample
Make a show from your topic or documents in the Lissin iPhone app (iOS 26 or later). Or listen to public shows in the web player without installing the app.
Last reviewed October 20, 2026 by Lissin Editorial.