Spotify has penned a brand new multi-year partnership cope with controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, whose enormously in style present will quickly even be out there on competing platforms, together with YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Spotify introduced the renewed partnership in a put up on the corporate’s company weblog Friday. Beneath a previous multimillion-dollar deal, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” had been a Spotify unique since 2020.
The Wall Avenue Journal, which first reported the new deal on Friday, estimated that the brand new contract was value as a lot as $250 million over its multiyear time period. It cited unnamed folks aware of the matter. The pact entails an upfront minimal assure, along with a income sharing settlement based mostly on advert gross sales, the newspaper reported.
In an electronic mail to The Related Press on Saturday, Spotify declined to touch upon the deal’s monetary particulars, together with the estimated worth.
Through the years, 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 talk about, and it all just sort of happens in real time,” mentioned Rogan on Spotify’s weblog put up. “It’s just an actual organic conversation with people enjoying themselves, which is something we all can relate to, and something we all love to do. These conversations have changed the way I think about life immeasurably and continue to do so.”
The present is constantly Spotify’s hottest podcast but in addition a frequent explanation for controversy for the corporate. Most notably, Spotify got here below big stress in 2022 to drop Rogan over his anti-coronavirus vaccine comments and use of racial slurs, with some musicians, together with Neil Young, pulling their music from the platform in protest.
In February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek denounced the host’s racist language however mentioned, “I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.”
Spotify’s shares closed up $3.51, or practically 2% to $222.47 per share on Friday.
