In May 2020, after an intense courtship, Spotify announced a licensing agreement to host Mr.
Spotify executives came to view Joe Rogan - a comedian and sports commentator whose no-holds-barred podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was already a monster hit on YouTube - as that transformative star. To help propel Spotify into its next phase as an all-purpose audio juggernaut, and further challenge Apple and Google, it wanted a superstar podcaster, much as Howard Stern helped put satellite radio on the map in 2006. However, a new report today says that the actual cost was at least twice that…Įven at $100M, it was looking like Spotify had paid a lot of money for what is now looking more like a liability than an asset, but the New York Times cites two sources saying that it was double this. The post Spotify Shrugs Off Joe Rogan Podcast Drama, Topping Q1 Estimates: “Nothing Has Changed At All” appeared first on Deadline.The Joe Rogan Spotify podcast cost was widely reported to have been $100M, though neither party commented on it. Like a number of companies in the tech space and many other sectors, Spotify paused operations in Russia after the country invaded neighboring Ukraine. The number of paid subscribers hit 182 million, up a net 2 million from the previous quarter despite a loss of 1.5 million due to the company’s pullout in Russia. The tally accounts for 3 million users cut loose due to a service outage. The streaming audio giant reported 419 million monthly active users in the quarter ending March 31, up 19% over the prior-year period. “When I look out over the long term, in terms of the benefits and the margin profile of the podcasting business, nothing has changed at all in my mind in terms of optimism.” “We’re seeing that engagement on the platform,” he said. Vogel pointed to metrics at all-time highs, including the ratio of podcast listeners to total listeners, as well as total podcast streams. “We feel really good about the investments we’re making and the long-term implications they will have on our business and our shareholders.” “For investors, structurally, podcasting should be a better business model than music, from a gross margin perspective,” Ek said. Management offered a unified response to the drama, maintaining that it hasn’t slowed their momentum. Last week, it was reported that Michelle and Barack Obama’s production company Higher Ground, a marquee podcast entity signed by Spotify, will not renew its exclusive deal there and will move to a competitor. A number of prominent musical artists, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from Spotify in protest. Rogan was never named specifically on the call, but the early part of 2022 the surfacing of offensive and racist comments from the host put a bright spotlight on his Spotify deal, which is worth a reported $200 million. Both top and bottom line figures came in well ahead of analysts’ forecasts.ĭuring a conference call after the release of the numbers, CEO Daniel Ek and CFO Paul Vogel both maintained the company’s podcast business has never been stronger. Revenue inched up to $2.8 billion from $2.6 billion. The Stockholm-based audio giant swung to earnings of 24 cents a share compared with a loss of 30 cents a year ago. Spotify said it is not experiencing any negative effects from blowback over podcast hosts like Joe Rogan, with the company’s first-quarter results exceeding Wall Street forecasts.
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