- Bloomberg reported that Spotify has released a new feature that displays the number of followers a podcast has.
- Joe Rogan is the most popular podcast on Spotify with 14.5 million followers.
- This doesn't include his YouTube and Apple Podcast viewers.
In 2020, Spotify paid $100 million for exclusive audio rights to the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Last month, the company renewed its contract with Logan for $250 million over several years (but without exclusivity).
It's clear that Spotify needs Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan apparently needs Spotify. Joe Rogan continues to support Joe Rogan even as his show comes under fire for spreading vaccine misinformation and more.
For the first time, I realized just how big Logan's podcast audience really is. Ashley Carman reported in Bloomberg that Spotify has started testing a new feature that shows the number of followers a podcast has.
According to Carman's report, The Joe Rogan Experience is not only the most popular podcast on Spotify, it's nearly three times the size of the second most popular podcast (TED Talks Daily). He has 14.5 million followers, dwarfing other popular podcasts such as The New York Times' The Daily (2.6 million) and This American Life (870,000).
Carman explains that these numbers don't even give a complete picture of Logan's overall audience:
His Spotify follower count is still small compared to his 16.4 million YouTube subscribers and 18.9 million personal Instagram followers. However, it's worth noting that Logan has amassed these Spotify followers in just his four years. His show wasn't on the platform until 2020 when he signed an exclusive deal.
While follower count doesn't necessarily translate to views, it's still a great number. For comparison, according to Edison Research, approximately 42 million people in the United States will be listening to podcasts in 2023. Based on numbers cited by Bloomberg, it's safe to assume that a significant portion of these listeners are paying attention to Joe Rogan.
