NEW YORK — Spotify has signed a new multi-year partnership deal with controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, whose hugely popular show will soon be available on rival platforms including YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Spotify announced the renewed partnership on Friday in a post on the company’s corporate blog. Under a previous multi-million dollar deal, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ has been exclusive to Spotify since 2020.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the new deal on Friday, estimated that the new contract was worth as much as $250 million over its multi-year term. It quoted anonymous people familiar with the matter. The pact includes a minimum upfront guarantee, in addition to a revenue-sharing agreement based on advertising sales, the newspaper reported.
Spotify was not immediately available for comment on Saturday.
Over the years, Rogan has built a huge audience that listens to his long, diverse interviews with a variety of guests, including comedians, athletes, scientists and conspiracy theorists.
“There’s no script for what we’re going to talk about, and it’s all happening in real time,” Rogan says in Spotify’s blog post. “It’s just a really organic conversation where people are having a good time, something we can all relate to, and something we all enjoy doing. These conversations have immeasurably changed the way I think about life and continue to do so.”
The show is consistently Spotify’s most popular podcast, but also a frequent cause of controversy for the company. Most notably, Spotify came under intense pressure to drop Rogan in 2022 over his comments on anti-coronavirus vaccines and use of racist slurs, with some musicians, including Neil Young, pulling their music from the platform in protest got.
In February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek denounced the host’s racist language but said, “I don’t believe silencing Joe is the solution.”
Shares of Spotify closed Friday up $3.51, or nearly 2%, to $222.47 per share.