The Joe Rogan Experience will soon become a Spotify exclusive, meaning episodes’ full audio and video will only be available through the platform starting later this year.
The show will become available on Spotify globally starting on September 1st, and it’ll become an exclusive sometime after that point. Listeners won’t have to pay to access the episodes, but they will have to become Spotify users. Spotify said in a press release that Rogan retains creative control over his show. It didn’t disclose how much it spent on the deal. The company will also work with an ad agency to jointly sell ads against the program. Rogan said last year his show reached about 190 million downloads a month.
Rogan’s YouTube channel will remain live, but it won’t contain full episodes… Spotify’s podcast ambitions always directly targeted Apple, which, up until now, has been the biggest name in podcast players. But with the Rogan deal, Spotify also has another new target: YouTube. When it began testing its video podcasting feature earlier this month, it did so with the backing of two popular YouTubers. Rogan is one of the most popular YouTube podcasters, often with millions of people watching each episode, so losing his voice on the platform is a major hit to YouTube and a big gain for Spotify.
MacDailyNews Take: Emminently pirateable, for those who care. And, as Spotify and likely even Joe Rogan know well: Without Apple, podcasting wouldn’t even exist; it wouldn’t even have its name.
A major blow to Apple. They’re losing his show. It doesn’t matter that much to You Tube. He has 6 million followers there, which is a high number, but not even close to the highest. Two people I watch have over 10 million subs each. Another has close to 7 million.
And why didn’t Apple TV go grab him 2x years ago for Apple TV+ or Apple Music? Asleep at the wheel…
No, no. Instead, Apple will spend as much on a random TV+ mini-series that won’t gain them, our keep more than 17 subscribers. Nice work Apple… ugh.
Apple could also have been scooping up major sports contracts, and they don’t do that either. Tech people are clueless that sports and news are the ONLY reasons cable subscriptions exist anymore. Ugh…
Apple are too concerned with signing deals with the likes of Oprah, Obama’s, Reese W and other milquetoast “entertainers” to fit into their idea of a clean image.
For them to survive streaming wars after all the free subscriptions expire, they’re gonna need to rethink their lineup.
As for podcasts, it’s not unlike many other great things that Apple were on the ground floor with and abandoned. Or close to abandoned.
I seriously, literally could not care less about this moron
And yet, here you are, calling the kettle black. lol
Podcast gets it name from the IPOD. An Apple invention under Steve Jobs that transformed the company and the world. Apple invent Podcast. What is Apple doing?? Apple should own this just like it should own streaming. They were 4 years ahead of Netflix of purchasing and streaming a movie. Apple stock would be $700 not $314. Not complaining as a shareholder since 2002. But Apple today seems to miss a lot of opportunities that would tuck into Services nicely. I would rather pay my Netflix bill to Apple today. Apple should have come up with a competitive offering to Youtube. Most Youtube videos are very likely shot on iPhones.
“Apple invent Podcast.”
No, they didn’t. Put down the kool aid.
I was going to say something about RSS, but I’m not sure you’d get it.
Say what you will about Joe Rogan, but if it required a can on a string to get his podcast, I’d do it.
I’m glad Spotify signed Joe Rogan away because Big Brother Youtube needed to be taught a big lesson and got slapped in the face today. I’m sure Rogan was sick and tired of all the censorship and demonetization crap they’ve been pulling on content creators for the past few years.
And let’s get real here – Apple had zero foresight to even consider signing Rogan. Eddie Cue is way too busy picking out his front-row seat tickets to sporting events for the 2021 season.
Apple has only very recently shown any love for podcasts. They didn’t even like the name at first. Serves them right for not supporting the medium until it became “popular”.
And Apple has gutted the podcast app in Catalina. No podcast library support for keeping and managing old episodes, and no playlists, both of which existed in iTunes.