The controversies and PR issues weren’t enough to dissuade Spotify from renewing its deal with podcaster Joe Rogan, whose show over the past two years has divided music fans and artists and even prompted some big names, like Neil Young, to remove their catalogs from the streaming service. Regardless, the show has remained popular enough to earn the top spot for users’ most-listened to podcast every year since its arrival on Spotify in 2020. Now, Spotify’s relationship with the podcaster continues, as the company announced a new multi-year deal with Rogan. , estimated at $250 million over its duration, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The deal will give Rogan a minimum upfront guarantee as well as a cut of advertising sales, the Journal said. (Spotify told us, however, that the reported number was incorrect.)
Importantly, Rogan’s show will no longer be exclusive to Spotify.
Rogan’s deal with Spotify came at a time when the company’s strategy focused on creating a set of exclusive and original programming to make its service more competitive with Apple Podcasts and others. The company invested billions to grow its podcast business, investing in studio and intellectual property acquisitions as well as new technology, including ad tech, before changing course last year. The head of Spotify’s podcast business, Dawn Ostroff, resigned and the company made layoffs. Under Ostroff’s leadership, Spotify acquired studios like Parcast, The Ringer and Gimlet Media, and signed exclusive deals with Rogan, Alex Cooper (“Call Her Daddy”) and Dax Shepard.
This week, news broke that Cooper’s show would no longer be limited to Spotify and would launch on other audio platforms, like Apple. The video of the show would, however, remain on Spotify. The move follows others that have seen Spotify loosen its grip on its exclusives, such as last year’s announcement that Gimlet would expand its shows to other platforms. Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” and “Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain” had also been released more widely, leaving Rogan’s show as Spotify’s remaining exclusive. And now that’s no longer the case.
Spotify’s leadership change comes as the company continues to struggle to consistently generate profits, having reported its first quarterly profit in a year and a half in October. By making old exclusives available on more platforms, Spotify will have the ability to increase advertising revenue generated by these shows. This might now be more desirable than keeping them under lock and key to entice new subscribers.
It could also come as some relief to Spotify when Rogan enters controversial territory. In 2022, the streamer faced backlash after Rogan was accused of using its platform to spread misinformation. This led Spotify to adjust its policies and include content reviews, but ultimately artist departures, the #cancelspotify campaign, and negative headlines did not impact viewership. Spotify’s paying subscribers at the time, nor did it give a boost to Spotify’s streaming competitors.
“JRE remains the king of podcasting, consistently ranking as the most listened to podcast in the world and our users have ranked the show as Spotify’s Top Wrapped Podcast every year since 2020,” Spotify noted in the blog post. Today. The company said JRE now has more than 2,200 episodes available and the podcast is the second most listened to show for women over 13 in the United States, according to Edison, as well as the number one overall show in third quarter. 2023.
Since joining Spotify, overall podcast consumption has increased by 232% and advertising revenue has increased by 80% between 2021 and 2023. JRE’s advertising revenue has increased by 45% in 2023.
Updated 2/2/24, 2:10 p.m. ET Updated to note that Spotify disputes the figure shared by the Journal. However, he declined to comment on the terms of the deal.
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