Spotify’s Exclusive Show Era Ends

Amid a profits push, its new deals with stars Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper let their podcasts live on rival platforms

In the last week of January, Spotify made new deals with The Joe Rogan Experience, which had been the top podcast of the year globally at the audio giant for the past four years, and with Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, which had also been among the top-ranking titles. The

Daniel Ek-led firm will retain exclusivity of the video form of Cooper’s podcast and sell ads for both, in a strategy that appears likely to keep both podcast creators and Wall Street happy. Spotify had already ended many high-profile exclusive distribution deals, including its pacts with the Obamas and Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. While all these deals, and those of

Joe Rogan and Cooper, were meant to bring in big audiences and ad dollars to the platform at a time when Spotify was trying to grow its podcast listenership, they also saw Spotify paying more up front.

Since inking the original deals, Spotify has faced calls from Wall Street to stem its spending. Last April, Ek said the company had been “overpaying and over investing” on podcasting and talent deals. The company also enacted several rounds of layoffs in 2023 and merged its podcasting studios Parcast and Gimlet into a single division after canceling 10 shows. And, this fall, after reporting a surprise operating profit, the company said its podcast segment is on track to reach breakeven in 2024. (The stock ended

2023 up 139 percent, making it one of the top-performing entertainment stocks.) Rogan’s podcast was still the most listened-to title in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2023, according to an Edison Research Survey, while Call Her Daddy was No. 7. Speaking on Spotify’s earnings call Feb. 6, Ek said the exclusivity strategy made more sense for the company when it was a smaller podcasting player, but not so much now, noting: “With these new deals that we’ve been making for most of 2023, we are in a position where we’re actually better aligned with the creator.”