SPOTIFY’S $100M+ JOE ROGAN DEAL REDEFINES ITS PODCAST STRATEGY. SONGWRITERS AND RECORD LABELS SHOULD BE WATCHING CLOSELY.
It’s interesting, when you think about it, that many of Spotify’s biggest rivals – Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Tencent Music – have proudly chosen to singularly define their brands with one type of content: music. Spotify, of course, is now much more than a music service. It’s “the largest audio platform in the world”. That’s how comedian Joe Rogan described SPOT when making the game-changing announcement yesterday (May 19) that one of the globe’s biggest podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience , is moving exclusively to Daniel Ek’s platform. From the end of this year, both audio and video versions of The JRE will only be available on Spotify, via a licensing deal that the Wall Street Journal suggests will cost Daniel Ek’s company over $100m. Rogan’s ‘cast is known for its sometimes fascinating, always freewheeling conversations with figures from across the spectrum of politics and celebrity. The show’s typical length runs betwee...