After years of splurging and expansion, the audio platform's podcast strategy has taken a step back.
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In a sense, we have come full circle. In a sense. Last Friday, it was announced that Joe Rogan would be staying with Spotify, entering into a new partnership with the platform and resolving some of the questions that caused this year's uproar. wall street journal We first broke the news, reporting that the multi-year deal could be worth up to $250 million, with minimum guarantees and reduced advertising revenue.
It is worth considering the size of this deal in context. Today, Spotify is a company trying to practice what market analysts euphemistically call “cost discipline” after years of splurging backfired as its overall financial situation deteriorated. Remembering the multiple layoffs in the last year, how contracts for new talent are small and risk-managed (as in the case of Trevor Noah), and the overall investment away from anything resembling the original job. please. It's also Spotify, which is on the back foot, scrambling for opportunities while trying to keep costs down for audiobooks, video, AI, and more. Logan almost certainly had all the leverage for renegotiation. What is important to note is that the new contract is not a continuation of the current situation. joe rogan experience As part of the updated arrangement, it will no longer be exclusive to Spotify. It's coming soon to all platforms, including YouTube, which is increasingly recognized as a podcast publisher.
If you're wondering what Spotify can do without exclusivity, the answer is, well, there's still quite a lot.He is widely considered to be one of the world's biggest podcasters, if not of Maximum — joe rogan experience It continues to be a huge engine that helps Spotify in several different directions. Ad revenue will obviously be generated, and the cash is good for Spotify at a time when tech companies have to actually prove they can make a profit. Advertisers will continue to be excited to talk to Spotify about Megaphone, the podcast hosting and monetization platform that has been central to paying off the huge bets it has made on the category over the past few years. joe rogan experience It will also continue to play a big role in Spotify's transition to video, which remains haphazard.Platforms seem to want to build their own in-app video experiences meanwhile make money from partners like joe rogan experience By helping you monetize on YouTube.
The same logic applies for: other Big Spotify content news in recent weeks: Announcing the release of audio episodes of please call her dad, another blue-chip asset in Spotify's portfolio, will no longer be exclusive to the platform. (However, the video version of that show is still exclusive to Spotify's video experience. Like I said, it's haphazard.) Technically, please call her dad This isn't the last podcast exclusive to Spotify. The platform still has some original works, including audio dramas that dabbled in IP. unburied batmanAnd a spokesperson said the company is “considering plans to develop other programming on a case-by-case basis over time.”But with Logan please call her dad These define Spotify's non-music business, and widespread expansion of both would effectively end Spotify's foray into a platform exclusivity strategy, which would leave a very mixed legacy at best. That's going to happen.
On the other hand, I've heard many industry insiders argue that the reason Spotify can claim to have overtaken Apple in terms of podcast listeners is because of its pursuit of monopoly. On the other hand, if it is a victory, it is a Pyrrhic victory. This is a lot of cash and bodies burned, not to mention goodwill to a significant extent. Moreover, exclusivity almost certainly prevented many of its shows from getting a fair chance of gaining an audience that would help justify their existence.It is so strongly believed that joe rogan experience's audience was hit, at least initially, because of its exclusivity, but that idea is often disputed. The best way this theory could be proven was through indirect means, as in the case of his 2021 effort by The Verge.
Your bust cycle makes a big difference. When Joe Rogan's original deal with Spotify was first announced in 2020, months after the pandemic began and the podcast market was frothing and soaring, the CEO of a podcast company said to me, “Game.'' , set, match,” to express what has become commonplace. I felt that the Swedish platform had an insurmountable advantage over everyone else. It's his third year, a global pandemic, multiple Rogan controversies (oh yeah, this is an election year), fake– Withdrawal, several rate hikes, and tough growth in previous podcasting. The executive who sent me that email should no longer be working.
It turns out Spotify had little planning, and looking back over the past few years, it seems like the platform's epic podcast future is ultimately looking a lot like its past. . This means an ecosystem that basically looks like old-school radio, at least at the top. This feeling is further emphasized by other hierarchies. other big podcast news smartlessAccording to Bloomberg, the popular cast of stars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes will move from Amazon to SiriusXM for $100 million. “It's starting to shake out in a way reminiscent of things like terrestrial radio,” Scott Greenberg, the satellite radio company's chief content officer, said on a recent investor call. It's hard to argue with that.
But when I say that modern podcasts are starting to look like the early days, I'm also referring to the fact that a broad swath of today's podcast mainstream is about the same as it was in the late 2000s. You'll find us on the radio, Logan. (And Bill Simmons, Marc Maron…and even Roman Mars. They're all still here!) Perhaps most importantly, the walled garden push has been abandoned for now, and podcasting has opened up.・It's my return to publishing. This means that no one can structurally control space, so it is an unalloyed good. After all, Spotify spent a lot of money to get ahead, but it seems like it ended up falling right next to SiriusXM.
