There’s a new player in the race for on-air talent and its not radio

Staff Writer

Today’s announcement from Spotify suggests there is a new player in the market for talent.

As most radio executives know, talent is and always has been the definer between a great radio brand and station and an underperforming one.

For decades radio has paid good money to keep talent on their stations, but rising talent costs across the medium have also been a juggling act for most radio businesses.

But suddenly a new contender appears in the market that could spell good news for some.

Overnight streaming giant Spotify, who has been vocal about plans to kill radio as we know it, announced they have signed Joe Rogan to an exclusive deal on their podcasting platform.

Rogan is a podcasting powerhouse with over 9.4 million followers on Instagram and in an estimated 200 million monthly listens of The Joe Rogan Experience.

This is a big deal for podcasting, great talent and Rogan’s bank balance. The deal worth a reported AU$152 million for 11 years worth of content.

It means that Spotify is now looking to sign talent directly, without demanding creative control.

Rogan assured his listeners the newly-struck agreement is only a licensing one, and the company won’t have any “creative control” over the layout of the show.

This means that future talent contract negotiations could extend beyond the big four radio networks to include Spotify, in the two-way race to dominate on-demand audio.

The deal becomes the latest big-money signing from Spotify after they snapped up Gimlet Media and Bill Simmons’ The Ringer podcast network.

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Darren Moss
25 May 2020 - 12:46 pm

At $13M per year for 11 years Joe is taking care of his business.

When you create content that people want to consume AND you have a rusted-on audience, the platform doesn’t matter so much.

His listeners won’t care that the content they want is on Spotify, they will just download the app and continue listening so long as the content continues to appeal.

Brian
25 May 2020 - 4:02 pm

Sign up Doug Mulray, then watch the listeners follow.

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