BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Brazil's Bolsonaro Tweets Support For Podcaster RoganBy AFP News
02/03/22
Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted his support for embattled American podcast host Joe Rogan, whose spreading of disinformation about Covid-19 has caused a firestorm of controversy on streaming service Spotify.
The leader known as the "Tropical Trump," who has himself been accused of spreading disinformation on the pandemic, waded into the Rogan row with a rare English-language post on Twitter Wednesday.
"I'm not sure what @joerogan thinks about me or about my government, but it doesn't matter. If freedom of speech means anything, it means that people should be free to say what they think, no matter if they agree or disagree with us," Bolsonaro wrote.
"Stand your ground! Hugs from Brazil."
Rogan is at the center of an entertainment-world storm after several music superstars, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, ditched Spotify over its handling of Rogan's controversial statements on Covid-19 vaccines.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has regularly downplayed the danger of the coronavirus and promoted the use of treatments that doctors say do not work against Covid Photo: Poder360 via AFP / Sergio Lima
Rogan, an ex-martial arts champ turned hugely popular talk show host, has discouraged Covid-19 vaccination in young people and promoted the off-label use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to treat the disease.
Facing a spreading backlash, Spotify announced Sunday it would start guiding podcast listeners toward factual information on the pandemic.
But it has not cut ties with Rogan, whose show, "The Joe Rogan Experience," has been broadcast exclusively on the platform since 2020, under a deal worth an estimated $100 million.
The podcast draws 11 million listeners per episode on average.
Bolsonaro has himself questioned Covid-19 vaccines, joking they could "turn you into an alligator," and touted treatments such as anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine despite research showing they are ineffective against the disease.
Facing a spreading backlash, Spotify announced Sunday it would start guiding podcast listeners toward factual information on the pandemic.
But it has not cut ties with Rogan, whose show, "The Joe Rogan Experience," has been broadcast exclusively on the platform since 2020, under a deal worth an estimated $100 million.
The podcast draws 11 million listeners per episode on average.
Bolsonaro has himself questioned Covid-19 vaccines, joking they could "turn you into an alligator," and touted treatments such as anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine despite research showing they are ineffective against the disease.
EXPLAINER: What will Neil Young’s protest mean for Spotify?
By DAVID BAUDER and MATT O'BRIEN
By DAVID BAUDER and MATT O'BRIEN
February 1, 2022
FILE - In this May 25, 2019, photo, Neil Young performs at the BottleRock Napa Valley Music Festival at Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Following protests of Spotify kicked off by Young over the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, the music streaming service said Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022, that it will add content advisories before podcasts discussing the virus. The singer on Wednesday, Jan. 26, had his music removed from Spotify after the tech giant declined to remove episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which has been criticized for spreading virus misinformation. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Neil Young vs Joe Rogan seems like the strangest of cultural clashes.
Yet the 76-year-old rock star’s protest over coronavirus-related content on Rogan’s popular Spotify podcast has ignited a hot debate over misinformation and free speech, bruising a streaming service that has become the central way that millions of people around the world experience music.
“Rockin’ in the Free World”? Not on Spotify. Not anymore. Here’s what’s going on.
WHY IS YOUNG UPSET?
His protest came after dozens of doctors and scientists wrote an open letter to Spotify, complaining about Rogan’s decision to have a podcast discussion with Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation on COVID-19. Malone has become a hero in the anti-vaccination community.
Saying Spotify was complicit in spreading misinformation, Young told the company that it could have his music or Rogan’s podcast — “not both.” Spotify agreed to remove his music from the service.
IS THE PROTEST SPREADING?
Slowly. Joni Mitchell said she was standing in solidarity and also asked for her music to be removed. So did Nils Lofgren, a guitarist who plays in one of Young’s backing bands, Crazy Horse, and also with Bruce Springsteen. Podcaster Brene Brown also said she was halting new podcasts without saying exactly why.
FILE - In this May 25, 2019, photo, Neil Young performs at the BottleRock Napa Valley Music Festival at Napa Valley Expo in Napa, Calif. Following protests of Spotify kicked off by Young over the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, the music streaming service said Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022, that it will add content advisories before podcasts discussing the virus. The singer on Wednesday, Jan. 26, had his music removed from Spotify after the tech giant declined to remove episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which has been criticized for spreading virus misinformation. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Neil Young vs Joe Rogan seems like the strangest of cultural clashes.
Yet the 76-year-old rock star’s protest over coronavirus-related content on Rogan’s popular Spotify podcast has ignited a hot debate over misinformation and free speech, bruising a streaming service that has become the central way that millions of people around the world experience music.
“Rockin’ in the Free World”? Not on Spotify. Not anymore. Here’s what’s going on.
WHY IS YOUNG UPSET?
His protest came after dozens of doctors and scientists wrote an open letter to Spotify, complaining about Rogan’s decision to have a podcast discussion with Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation on COVID-19. Malone has become a hero in the anti-vaccination community.
Saying Spotify was complicit in spreading misinformation, Young told the company that it could have his music or Rogan’s podcast — “not both.” Spotify agreed to remove his music from the service.
IS THE PROTEST SPREADING?
Slowly. Joni Mitchell said she was standing in solidarity and also asked for her music to be removed. So did Nils Lofgren, a guitarist who plays in one of Young’s backing bands, Crazy Horse, and also with Bruce Springsteen. Podcaster Brene Brown also said she was halting new podcasts without saying exactly why.
RELATED STORIES
– Rogan responds to Spotify protest, COVID advisories
– Spotify to add advisories to podcasts discussing COVID-19
– Joni Mitchell joining Neil Young in protest over Spotify
Graham Nash, Young’s former bandmate in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, said Tuesday he wanted his solo music pulled, according to several reports Tuesday. India.arie said on Instagram that “Neil Young opened a door that I must walk through,” although she said she’s also concerned about unspecified Rogan comments on race.
The rock band Belly put the message “Delete Spotify” in the background of its Spotify page, but you could still stream their music. Pulling music off Spotify isn’t necessarily easy — often it’s the record company, not the artist, who controls that.
Spotify dominates the marketplace. It had 31 percent of the 524 million worldwide music stream subscriptions in the second quarter of 2021, more than double that of second-place Apple Music, according to Midia Research. Spotify is not always popular with musicians, many of whom complain that it doesn’t pay them enough for their work.
“Spotify has a huge amount of cultural capital that is itself power,” says Midia Research’s Mark Mulligan. ”And that is what at risk if more artists essentially tried to push their fans to other places.”
While losing Young and Mitchell may be a psychic blow, what would really matter is if a more current artist takes up the cause. Everyone in Spotify’s top 10 list of most-streamed artists, led by Drake’s 44 billion, are from past the turn of the century, with the possible exception of Eminem, who first became popular in 1999.
For those artists, and for Spotify, taking a stand like Young’s would have much more serious financial consequences.
WHY CHOOSE ROGAN OVER YOUNG?
Music accounts for the vast majority of Spotify’s revenue, but Rogan represents its future.
Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million to license Rogan’s podcast, its most popular. He’s the centerpiece of the company’s strategy to become an audio company rather than just a music company. In the long term, Spotify has more control over potential revenue from podcasts than it does for music, Mulligan says.
The Swedish company is gunning to be the premiere podcasting platform, investing hundreds of millions of dollars since 2019 to buy podcast companies like Gimlet and Anchor, and sign top hosts like Rogan and Dax Shepard.
Spotify was set to overtake Apple last year as the biggest podcast platform in the United States, the world’s largest market, by number of listeners, according to the research firm eMarketer.
Popular podcasters, particularly the outspoken ones, are likely to be watching this protest very closely to see if Spotify will stick up for the right to speak freely.
WHAT IS SPOTIFY DOING TO QUIET THE PROTESTS?
The company announced that it would add a warning before all podcasts that discuss COVID-19, directing listeners to factual information on the pandemic from scientists and public health experts. It did not discuss Rogan specifically.
Spotify has shown more transparency in the past few days than it ever has about how it deals with questionable content, and the new policy is a good first step, says John Wihbey, a Northeastern University professor and specialist in emerging technologies.
Yet it’s not clear that anyone has effectively dealt with the issue of misinformation spread through podcasts, Wihbey says. Will Rogan’s audience actually listen to an advisory and then hunt down other COVID information?
“This could be just window-dressing,” he says.
Rogan spoke publicly for the first time late Sunday, saying he’s sorry his critics feel the way they do, and it wasn’t his intention to upset anyone or spread misinformation. He said he likes to have conversations with people who offer different perspectives, and said that some things once considered misinformation — that cloth masks were not good at protecting against COVID, for example — are now accepted.
But he said he could do a better job having people who dispute controversial opinions like Malone’s on faster so his listeners will hear the different perspective.
The calculus for Spotify can change if the protest snowballs, says Colin Stutz, news director at Billboard magazine. “I think they just ride this out and hope that it goes away,” he said.
DOES ROGAN NEED TO LISTEN TO MORE MUSIC?
Probably. He talked in a video posted on Instagram about how he loved Mitchell’s music. “‘Chuck E’s in Love’ is a great song,’” he said.
Whoops. That was Rickie Lee Jones.
To Rogan’s credit, he quickly corrected himself on Twitter.
Associated Press correspondents Kristin M. Hall and Tali Arbel contributed to this report.
– Rogan responds to Spotify protest, COVID advisories
– Spotify to add advisories to podcasts discussing COVID-19
– Joni Mitchell joining Neil Young in protest over Spotify
Graham Nash, Young’s former bandmate in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, said Tuesday he wanted his solo music pulled, according to several reports Tuesday. India.arie said on Instagram that “Neil Young opened a door that I must walk through,” although she said she’s also concerned about unspecified Rogan comments on race.
The rock band Belly put the message “Delete Spotify” in the background of its Spotify page, but you could still stream their music. Pulling music off Spotify isn’t necessarily easy — often it’s the record company, not the artist, who controls that.
Spotify dominates the marketplace. It had 31 percent of the 524 million worldwide music stream subscriptions in the second quarter of 2021, more than double that of second-place Apple Music, according to Midia Research. Spotify is not always popular with musicians, many of whom complain that it doesn’t pay them enough for their work.
“Spotify has a huge amount of cultural capital that is itself power,” says Midia Research’s Mark Mulligan. ”And that is what at risk if more artists essentially tried to push their fans to other places.”
While losing Young and Mitchell may be a psychic blow, what would really matter is if a more current artist takes up the cause. Everyone in Spotify’s top 10 list of most-streamed artists, led by Drake’s 44 billion, are from past the turn of the century, with the possible exception of Eminem, who first became popular in 1999.
For those artists, and for Spotify, taking a stand like Young’s would have much more serious financial consequences.
WHY CHOOSE ROGAN OVER YOUNG?
Music accounts for the vast majority of Spotify’s revenue, but Rogan represents its future.
Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million to license Rogan’s podcast, its most popular. He’s the centerpiece of the company’s strategy to become an audio company rather than just a music company. In the long term, Spotify has more control over potential revenue from podcasts than it does for music, Mulligan says.
The Swedish company is gunning to be the premiere podcasting platform, investing hundreds of millions of dollars since 2019 to buy podcast companies like Gimlet and Anchor, and sign top hosts like Rogan and Dax Shepard.
Spotify was set to overtake Apple last year as the biggest podcast platform in the United States, the world’s largest market, by number of listeners, according to the research firm eMarketer.
Popular podcasters, particularly the outspoken ones, are likely to be watching this protest very closely to see if Spotify will stick up for the right to speak freely.
WHAT IS SPOTIFY DOING TO QUIET THE PROTESTS?
The company announced that it would add a warning before all podcasts that discuss COVID-19, directing listeners to factual information on the pandemic from scientists and public health experts. It did not discuss Rogan specifically.
Spotify has shown more transparency in the past few days than it ever has about how it deals with questionable content, and the new policy is a good first step, says John Wihbey, a Northeastern University professor and specialist in emerging technologies.
Yet it’s not clear that anyone has effectively dealt with the issue of misinformation spread through podcasts, Wihbey says. Will Rogan’s audience actually listen to an advisory and then hunt down other COVID information?
“This could be just window-dressing,” he says.
Rogan spoke publicly for the first time late Sunday, saying he’s sorry his critics feel the way they do, and it wasn’t his intention to upset anyone or spread misinformation. He said he likes to have conversations with people who offer different perspectives, and said that some things once considered misinformation — that cloth masks were not good at protecting against COVID, for example — are now accepted.
But he said he could do a better job having people who dispute controversial opinions like Malone’s on faster so his listeners will hear the different perspective.
The calculus for Spotify can change if the protest snowballs, says Colin Stutz, news director at Billboard magazine. “I think they just ride this out and hope that it goes away,” he said.
DOES ROGAN NEED TO LISTEN TO MORE MUSIC?
Probably. He talked in a video posted on Instagram about how he loved Mitchell’s music. “‘Chuck E’s in Love’ is a great song,’” he said.
Whoops. That was Rickie Lee Jones.
To Rogan’s credit, he quickly corrected himself on Twitter.
___
Associated Press correspondents Kristin M. Hall and Tali Arbel contributed to this report.
Who is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?
In response, Spotify have finally released some “platform rules”, but they are generalised statements that avoid infringing the freedom of creators such as Rogan.
Most important in all of this is the audience. Rogan maintains he is just a comedian having long form conversations. This sounds fine on the surface (and similar to the infamous “not a journalist, but an entertainer” claims made by Australian shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones), but in practice Rogan’s words are heard by many more people than the average comedian just having a chat.
Podcasting’s wild west
Podcasting is still the relative wild west as an industry and medium. With ties to both the music industry and radio, podcasting remains mostly unregulated and diverse.
In a podsphere that now counts around three million titles, multi-million dollar projects with immaculate audio production and slick scripting co-exist alongside amateurs uploading rambling, barely audible chats. A near-global and cross-platform phenomenon, podcasting often evades the laws of any one jurisdiction.
Dave Winer’s open origin principle for podcasts has been at stake since Joe Rogan sold his name to Spotify. The question now is: where does editorial freedom sit? Should podcasters be regulated? And if so, how?
In response to the recent Spotify controversy Rogan says he is “not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective”. But as a public figure with such a large platform, should he really give equal weight to voices that clearly have unequal evidence to support them?
“SPOTIFY NEEDS HIM WAY MORE THAN HE NEEDS SPOTIFY”: JOE ROGAN DRAMA EXPOSES THE DRIFT OF AUDIO GIANT’S OTHER MEGA DEALS
Spotify’s once-grand star-studded podcast ambitions now rest squarely on Rogan’s shoulders. Even the Obamas are frustrated with their deal. As one industry insider put it, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day.”
BY JOE POMPEO
February 1, 2022
Joe Rogan is described on his website as “stand up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer, host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.” It’s the last of these that has really made his name, and for many audiences, made the medium of podcasting too.
An estimated 200 million people download Rogan’s podcast each month, making him the most popular podcaster in the US.
When Spotify signed a US$100 million (A$140 million) deal with Rogan in 2020 for the exclusive rights to his podcast the industry took notice. Before this, podcasts were everywhere, and their “platform agnostic” status was central to their appeal for creators and audiences.
The deal was a gamble, but one based on the numbers. As music journalist Ted Gioia put it in May 2020, “Spotify values Rogan more than any musician in the history of the world”. The reason? “A musician would need to generate 23 billion streams on Spotify to earn what they’re paying Joe Rogan for his podcast rights”.
Spotify can justify the spectacular outlay: there is a ton of advertising dollars to be made in spoken word audio, where podcasting is eating up what was once radio’s domain. Spotify’s other stellar podcast hosts include Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Joe Rogan is described on his website as “stand up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer, host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.” It’s the last of these that has really made his name, and for many audiences, made the medium of podcasting too.
An estimated 200 million people download Rogan’s podcast each month, making him the most popular podcaster in the US.
When Spotify signed a US$100 million (A$140 million) deal with Rogan in 2020 for the exclusive rights to his podcast the industry took notice. Before this, podcasts were everywhere, and their “platform agnostic” status was central to their appeal for creators and audiences.
The deal was a gamble, but one based on the numbers. As music journalist Ted Gioia put it in May 2020, “Spotify values Rogan more than any musician in the history of the world”. The reason? “A musician would need to generate 23 billion streams on Spotify to earn what they’re paying Joe Rogan for his podcast rights”.
Spotify can justify the spectacular outlay: there is a ton of advertising dollars to be made in spoken word audio, where podcasting is eating up what was once radio’s domain. Spotify’s other stellar podcast hosts include Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Why is Joe Rogan so popular?
What’s important about Joe Rogan is also the type of listener he attracts. Media Monitors says Rogan’s listenership is “71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates. Some 57% of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k”, with an average age of 24.
The Atlantic places gender at the heart of his appeal, suggesting “[Rogan] understands men in America better than most people do. The rest of the country should start paying attention.”
Prior to Rogan signing for Spotify, exclusivity in podcasting was unheard of. In 2001, US “media hacker” Dave Winer made public RSS, the Really Simple Syndication feed that could automatically “drop” a podcast episode online to a subscriber. Winer made the conscious decision to make RSS free and universal, in order to preserve a democratic ethos for podcasting similar to the recently created blogs he loved.
Signing an exclusive deal with Rogan could “make” Spotify as a podcasting platform of choice (and audio empire generally), or it could see Rogan lose fans who couldn’t be bothered to move with him. A study by The Verge showed Rogan gained fans when he first made the exclusive podcasting deal.
Part of Rogan’s appeal is his rawness – with episodes regularly two to three hours long and with minimal (if any) editing. He says what he thinks and feels in the moment, harnessing the compelling emotional power of the voice in a similar way to the great radio broadcasters of any age.
So, what’s the problem?
Rogan often makes pernicious claims. One ironic example occurred when Rogan circulated a fake ad made by Gruen to represent Australia’s pandemic propaganda – made funnier given the ad parodied people who relied on Rogan’s advice rather than medical professionals.
He added a correction, albeit a small one, and these types of mistakes have become memes since then.
Far more seriously, Rogan has peddled egregious conspiracy theories and disinformation. He amplified disgraced radio host Alex Jones’ lie the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen (apparently causing internal conflict at Spotify last year as a result).
According to a report by Media Matters, which studied the Joe Rogan Experience for a year, Rogan regularly trafficks misinformation and bigotry. The author drew particular attention to Rogan’s “right-wing misinformation and bigotry”, “anti-trans rhetoric” and “COVID-19 misinformation”.
A collection of medical professionals have campaigned against misinformation on the platform, and artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have removed their work from Spotify.
What’s important about Joe Rogan is also the type of listener he attracts. Media Monitors says Rogan’s listenership is “71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates. Some 57% of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k”, with an average age of 24.
The Atlantic places gender at the heart of his appeal, suggesting “[Rogan] understands men in America better than most people do. The rest of the country should start paying attention.”
Prior to Rogan signing for Spotify, exclusivity in podcasting was unheard of. In 2001, US “media hacker” Dave Winer made public RSS, the Really Simple Syndication feed that could automatically “drop” a podcast episode online to a subscriber. Winer made the conscious decision to make RSS free and universal, in order to preserve a democratic ethos for podcasting similar to the recently created blogs he loved.
Signing an exclusive deal with Rogan could “make” Spotify as a podcasting platform of choice (and audio empire generally), or it could see Rogan lose fans who couldn’t be bothered to move with him. A study by The Verge showed Rogan gained fans when he first made the exclusive podcasting deal.
Part of Rogan’s appeal is his rawness – with episodes regularly two to three hours long and with minimal (if any) editing. He says what he thinks and feels in the moment, harnessing the compelling emotional power of the voice in a similar way to the great radio broadcasters of any age.
So, what’s the problem?
Rogan often makes pernicious claims. One ironic example occurred when Rogan circulated a fake ad made by Gruen to represent Australia’s pandemic propaganda – made funnier given the ad parodied people who relied on Rogan’s advice rather than medical professionals.
He added a correction, albeit a small one, and these types of mistakes have become memes since then.
Far more seriously, Rogan has peddled egregious conspiracy theories and disinformation. He amplified disgraced radio host Alex Jones’ lie the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen (apparently causing internal conflict at Spotify last year as a result).
According to a report by Media Matters, which studied the Joe Rogan Experience for a year, Rogan regularly trafficks misinformation and bigotry. The author drew particular attention to Rogan’s “right-wing misinformation and bigotry”, “anti-trans rhetoric” and “COVID-19 misinformation”.
A collection of medical professionals have campaigned against misinformation on the platform, and artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have removed their work from Spotify.
In response, Spotify have finally released some “platform rules”, but they are generalised statements that avoid infringing the freedom of creators such as Rogan.
Most important in all of this is the audience. Rogan maintains he is just a comedian having long form conversations. This sounds fine on the surface (and similar to the infamous “not a journalist, but an entertainer” claims made by Australian shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones), but in practice Rogan’s words are heard by many more people than the average comedian just having a chat.
Podcasting’s wild west
Podcasting is still the relative wild west as an industry and medium. With ties to both the music industry and radio, podcasting remains mostly unregulated and diverse.
In a podsphere that now counts around three million titles, multi-million dollar projects with immaculate audio production and slick scripting co-exist alongside amateurs uploading rambling, barely audible chats. A near-global and cross-platform phenomenon, podcasting often evades the laws of any one jurisdiction.
Dave Winer’s open origin principle for podcasts has been at stake since Joe Rogan sold his name to Spotify. The question now is: where does editorial freedom sit? Should podcasters be regulated? And if so, how?
In response to the recent Spotify controversy Rogan says he is “not interested in only talking to people that have one perspective”. But as a public figure with such a large platform, should he really give equal weight to voices that clearly have unequal evidence to support them?
Authors
Siobhan McHugh
Honorary Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
Disclosure statement
Siobhan McHugh received funding from the Australian Research Council to produce the podcast Heart of Artness, about crosscultural relationships in the production of Australian Aboriginal art.
Honorary Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
Disclosure statement
Siobhan McHugh received funding from the Australian Research Council to produce the podcast Heart of Artness, about crosscultural relationships in the production of Australian Aboriginal art.
Spotify’s once-grand star-studded podcast ambitions now rest squarely on Rogan’s shoulders. Even the Obamas are frustrated with their deal. As one industry insider put it, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day.”
BY JOE POMPEO
FEBRUARY 1, 2022
FROM GETTY IMAGES.
After radically reshaping how we listen to and purchase music, in 2019 Spotify set its sights on new conquests. The audio gold rush was well underway, and Spotify mined its riches with a push into podcasting, acquiring Gimlet Media, Parcast, and The Ringer. They also embarked on a series of mega deals for high-wattage talent, signing the Obamas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and, of course, podcasting phenomenon Joe Rogan, who entered into an exclusive licensing agreement for a reported $100 million. The strategy was a means to attract new customers while showing Wall Street a path forward that didn’t involve siphoning roughly 70% of Spotify’s revenues back to the music industry. Content, of course, has a tendency to court controversy, and Rogan is now giving Spotify more controversy than it bargained for.
With his outsize media footprint, no-fucks-given hosting style, and an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan is, like it or not, the face of Spotify’s podcasting play. It’s a face that comes with voluble “anti-woke” bona fides; a hyper-macho sensibility somewhere between MAGA and Bernie Bro; and, most problematically, a warm embrace of vaccine skepticism. But all of that is part of the appeal for Rogan’s loyal army of superfans, many of them young and male, which is what makes him so valuable to a company whose success depends on attracting large numbers of engaged paying subscribers. In the words of one seasoned audio industry insider, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day. Spotify needs him way more than he needs Spotify.” (Spotify didn’t have a comment for this story.)
The Joe Rogan Experience, which debuted in the earlier and comparatively quaint podcasting era of 2009, towers over its Spotify peers. Part of that has to do with the reality that the company’s other big-ticket deals just simply haven’t gained the same traction. Harry and Meghan have produced a lone 33-minute holiday special since inking a reported $25 million Spotify contract in December 2020. (They currently don’t have anything else in development with Spotify, someone familiar with the matter confirmed.) The Obamas, whose 2019 deal was rumored to be in the same general ballpark, have produced a few compelling shows, including one podcast hosted by Michelle Obama and another in which Barack Obama teamed up with Bruce Springsteen. But the buzz around these efforts has paled in comparison to the couples’ best-selling memoirs, or even the award-winning features they’ve produced for a separate content deal they have with Netflix. Moreover, informed sources told me the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, has been frustrated with Spotify at times, finding it difficult to get additional shows off the ground. I’m told the Obamas are more interested in lifting young new voices than carrying shows themselves, and that this focus hasn’t always aligned with Spotify’s. (Another source said that Spotify and Higher Ground are in active production on new shows in this vein.) As for the other offerings under the Spotify banner, chances are you haven’t heard of them. But you almost certainly hear about Joe Rogan every time something crazy is said on his show.
After radically reshaping how we listen to and purchase music, in 2019 Spotify set its sights on new conquests. The audio gold rush was well underway, and Spotify mined its riches with a push into podcasting, acquiring Gimlet Media, Parcast, and The Ringer. They also embarked on a series of mega deals for high-wattage talent, signing the Obamas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and, of course, podcasting phenomenon Joe Rogan, who entered into an exclusive licensing agreement for a reported $100 million. The strategy was a means to attract new customers while showing Wall Street a path forward that didn’t involve siphoning roughly 70% of Spotify’s revenues back to the music industry. Content, of course, has a tendency to court controversy, and Rogan is now giving Spotify more controversy than it bargained for.
With his outsize media footprint, no-fucks-given hosting style, and an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan is, like it or not, the face of Spotify’s podcasting play. It’s a face that comes with voluble “anti-woke” bona fides; a hyper-macho sensibility somewhere between MAGA and Bernie Bro; and, most problematically, a warm embrace of vaccine skepticism. But all of that is part of the appeal for Rogan’s loyal army of superfans, many of them young and male, which is what makes him so valuable to a company whose success depends on attracting large numbers of engaged paying subscribers. In the words of one seasoned audio industry insider, having Joe Rogan “is like dropping a Taylor Swift album every day. Spotify needs him way more than he needs Spotify.” (Spotify didn’t have a comment for this story.)
The Joe Rogan Experience, which debuted in the earlier and comparatively quaint podcasting era of 2009, towers over its Spotify peers. Part of that has to do with the reality that the company’s other big-ticket deals just simply haven’t gained the same traction. Harry and Meghan have produced a lone 33-minute holiday special since inking a reported $25 million Spotify contract in December 2020. (They currently don’t have anything else in development with Spotify, someone familiar with the matter confirmed.) The Obamas, whose 2019 deal was rumored to be in the same general ballpark, have produced a few compelling shows, including one podcast hosted by Michelle Obama and another in which Barack Obama teamed up with Bruce Springsteen. But the buzz around these efforts has paled in comparison to the couples’ best-selling memoirs, or even the award-winning features they’ve produced for a separate content deal they have with Netflix. Moreover, informed sources told me the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, has been frustrated with Spotify at times, finding it difficult to get additional shows off the ground. I’m told the Obamas are more interested in lifting young new voices than carrying shows themselves, and that this focus hasn’t always aligned with Spotify’s. (Another source said that Spotify and Higher Ground are in active production on new shows in this vein.) As for the other offerings under the Spotify banner, chances are you haven’t heard of them. But you almost certainly hear about Joe Rogan every time something crazy is said on his show.
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