Spotify has penned a brand new multi-year partnership cope with controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, whose enormously well-liked present will quickly even be obtainable on competing platforms, together with YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Spotify introduced the renewed partnership in a publish on the corporate’s company weblog Friday (Feb 2). Below a previous multimillion-dollar deal, The Joe Rogan Expertise, had been a Spotify unique since 2020.
Wall Avenue Journal, which first reported the brand new deal on Friday, estimated that the brand new contract was price as a lot as US$250 million (S$336 million) over its multi-year time period. It cited unnamed folks accustomed to the matter. The pact entails an upfront minimal assure, along with a income sharing settlement based mostly on advert gross sales, the newspaper reported.
Spotify could not instantly be reached for touch upon Saturday.
Over time, Rogan has developed an enormous viewers who take heed to his lengthy, wide-ranging interviews with a wide range of friends, together with comedians, athletes, scientists and conspiracy theorists.
“There’s no script of what we’re going to speak about and all of it simply kind of occurs in actual time,” mentioned Rogan on Spotify’s weblog publish. “It’s simply an precise natural dialog with folks having fun with themselves, which is one thing all of us can relate to, and one thing all of us like to do. These conversations have modified the way in which I take into consideration life immeasurably and proceed to take action.”
The present is constantly Spotify’s hottest podcast but additionally a frequent reason for controversy for the corporate. Most notably, Spotify got here underneath big stress in 2022 to drop Rogan over his anti-coronavirus vaccine feedback and use of racial slurs, with some musicians, together with Neil Younger, pulling their music from the platform in protest.
In February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek denounced the host’s racist language however mentioned, “I don’t imagine that silencing Joe is the reply”.
Spotify’s shares closed up US$3.51, or almost 2 per cent, to US$222.47 per share on Friday.
