Spotify reportedly paid $200 million for Joe Rogan's podcast — double the previously known price
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- Spotify's exclusivity deal with "The Joe Rogan Experience" was initially valued at $100 million.
- But the streamer actually paid Rogan double what was reported, sources told The New York Times.
- That brings the podcaster's total payday to $200 million over three and a half years.
Spotify paid $200 million for the exclusive streaming rights to "The Joe Rogan Experience," according to a Thursday report by The New York Times.
That's double the $100 million deal value previously reported in 2020. Rogan's agreement with Spotify was a multi-year contract to be paid over three and a half years, two anonymous sources familiar with the deal reportedly told the Times.
Spotify announced its exclusive deal with the world's #1 podcaster under two years ago, in May 2020, but didn't reveal the value of the contract. Rogan released his first show on the streaming service on September 1, 2020 and became exclusive to Spotify later that year.
Based on this timeline and the Times' report, Rogan's contract renewal is likely due sometime in 2023. Spotify did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Rogan has recently come under fire for spreading COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation on his podcast, causing musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to boycott Spotify.
Following the controversy, conservative-leaning video site Rumble offered Rogan $100 million to host his podcast there, matching what people believed to be the value of his deal with Spotify at the time.
"How about you bring all your shows to Rumble, both old and new, with no censorship, for 100 million bucks over four years? This is our chance to save the world. And yes, this is totally legit," CEO Chris Pavlovski said in a Twitter post.
Joe Rogan has since thanked Spotify for "taking so much heat" as Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the podcaster in a tense townhall with employees.
"I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I'm very sorry that this is happening to them," Rogan said in a video posted to Instagram.
Spotify has invested over $1 billion in its podcasting arm, including the acquisitions of Gimlet Media, Anchor, Parcast, The Ringer, and Megaphone. On Thursday, the company announced the purchase of two podcast analytics companies, Podsights and Chartable.
Podcast advertising accounted for 13% of Spotify's total 2021 revenue in Q3 as the streamer struggles to remain profitable, according to the Journal. After years of losing money, Spotify became profitable for the first time in company history in 2019. The next year, it lost the equivalent of $2.2 million every day.
Spotify's aggressive investment in podcasting and Rogan specifically has angered musicians who say Spotify underpays artists on its platform. Over the past two years, The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers has asked the streaming giant to raise its average pay of $0.0038 per stream to a penny per stream in the campaign "Justice at Spotify."
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/fsuQX13
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