Spotify is spending a lot of money to expand its audience, and it's counting on one of its top podcasters, Joe Rogan, to do just that. The audio streaming platform has signed a new multi-year deal with Rogan worth more than $250 million to spread the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” across multiple platforms, not just Spotify, The Wall Street Journal reports. It is said that they succeeded in tying the .
Spotify said in a news release that there's “more to come, including shows becoming available on additional platforms soon.” “JRE continues to be the king of podcasting, consistently ranking as the most listened to podcast around the world, and our users have ranked the show as a Wrapped top podcast on Spotify every year since 2020. I am.”
The Joe Rogan Experience started in 2009 and became exclusive to Spotify in 2020, with an estimated payout of $180 million to $220 million, according to the publication.
Spotify's move follows reports last month that the audio streaming service lost money on its $1 billion investment in podcasting, even as it signed deals with celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It was done after
In 2023, Spotify began doubling down on its efforts to grow its investments in podcasting. In a second round of job cuts last June, Spotify cut its “Global Podcasts and Other” workforce by 2%, or 200 people, to focus on expanding its partnerships with creators.
“We are expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters around the world, with an approach optimized for each show and creator. This fundamental shift away from a more unified proposition “This will enable us to better support our creator community, but that will require adaptation,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in an update on the company's organizational changes.
After vowing to bring podcasting to profitability within one to two years in 2022, Spotify Chief Financial Officer Paul Vogel said in an earnings call last October 24 that Spotify was “on track” to that schedule. ' he claimed.
“We're right on that schedule,” Vogel said on the earnings call. “In fact, we should reach break-even point in podcasting pretty quickly. And I think we should see trends in podcasting go from having a pretty big impact a year ago to having a pretty minimal impact to pretty short-term.” Overall, we are very satisfied with the progress we have made towards what should be a positive gross margin.”
