Podcast giant Joe Rogan gave Spotify credit for not bailing on their mega deal with his JRE Podcast in 2021 after the streaming platform came under pressure to do so.
At the end of 2020, Joe Rogan made a massive step in taking his podcast to new levels by signing a mega exclusivity deal with Spotify, as the streaming service is the only place to find full-length episodes of the JRE shows.
While the deal has been a success for both parties, Spotify has taken flak for pushing Rogan in such a major way, especially amid allegations of racist remarks made by the UFC commentator in past podcasts.
Throughout 2021, and through parts of 2022, Spotify has been pushed to drop their deal with Rogan, but they haven’t done so. There have been changes made to the show – some episodes now have content warnings and some have been removed – but the podcast host retains creative control.
Joe Rogan credits Spotify for sticking with him
One of Spotify’s main defenses of Rogan has been that they won’t and can’t censor rappers or other artists on their platform, which the podcast host praised them for.
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Speaking with comedian Paul Virzi on episode 1843, Rogan claimed that trying to get someone fired has become “a new sport” for some. “They love to attack someone’s sponsors… They’ll go after their sponsors or try to get their videos removed from YouTube,” Rogan said.
“It only really works if companies give into it. To Spotify’s credit, one of the brilliant things that they did was nothing. They just said ‘you know we’re not going to censor rappers. We’re not going to stop them from saying what they want to say. We’re not going to stop Joe, either. This is what he does, this is what he’s always done, we’re going to leave him alone.'”
Timestamp of 1:02:20
Rogan’s deal with Spotify reportedly runs through 2023, and there has yet to be any word about an extension – though it has proven to be a solid investment for the streaming platform.
It remains to be seen if they’ll up their investment, but it seems pretty plausible that they’ll do so.
