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Spotify announced this week that a deal had been struck with #1 podcaster, Joe Rogan. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal is worth $100 million. This gets Spotify exclusivity to Rogan’s content including his successful show The Joe Rogan Experience. This means that Rogan will have to move all of his content to Spotify, leaving Apple’s iTunes and Google’s YouTube with great losses. Rogan’s podcast, #1 in the world, will arrive on Spotify on the 1st of September. Let’s take a look at the deal in-depth and the impact it will have.
In April 2019, Rogan revealed that his podcast gets 190m downloads each month. He has 1500 podcasts in total. According to Forbes, the #1 podcaster made $30m last year. Even though Rogan gets $100 million off this deal, he made it clear on social media that the deal and money involved will not change the nature of his content. He will still have total creative control and definitely will not be an employee of Spotify.
This is the first time that the podcast industry has witnessed a deal like this. Rogan will be earning more than most musicians on the app, which shows how much the streaming giant values him. Spotify will also be integrating video on the platform just for Joe Rogan and his show.
Spotify is not just getting Rogan’s highly popular podcast on their platform, they are also getting the audience that comes with it. Rogan pulls his audience from a myriad of places. He has followers in practically every industry including UFC, Cannabis, Fitness, Hollywood, and a lot more. Spotify will make a lot of money from the advertisements as a result of the massive audience that will come through this deal.
Secondly, the deal sent Spotify’s stocks through the roof. Before this deal Spotify shares were worth $161.43. After, Rogan made the announcement the number rose to $189.80. The company was able to make 17.75% in 48hours. Spotify had a net worth of $30.5. billion which rose to $35.29 billion. They made 5 billion dollars just like that off this deal, which is a great bargain for 100 million dollars don’t you think.
Spotify has completely changed the landscape of the content creation industry. With this deal, content creators now know that their market is bigger than they were thinking. This is the statement and fact Spotify has established with this detail. More podcasters are likely to embrace licensing soon following this news. Also, this deal will have a huge impact on Apple and Google. Joe Rogan will take his content and audience with him to Spotify. If this grows into a trend and more creators follow this line, both Apple and Google could see creators and viewers switching permanently to Spotify from iTunes or YouTube. This would cause a huge loss for the companies.
In essence, Spotify gave $100 million to Joe Rogan, and he made them $5 billion within 48 hours. Spotify went after the best podcaster and took him. As more and more audiences shift to Spotify, more content creators will fall in line automatically. Spotify could arguably become the single largest force in audio in the world. A market that the company is already dominating pretty well. Above all, Spotify has raised the value of bars of content creators all around the world. Do you think in the next decade this industry could be worth billion of dollars? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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