A report from Semafor claims the relationship between Joe Rogan and Spotify has “frayed” since he joined the audio platform. Max Tani’s report goes as far as to claim Spotify could choose not to renew its contract with the podcast star later this year.
However, the platform is now denying that Rogan’s contract even expires this year.
The New York Post reached out to a Spotify spokesperson who “insisted” that Rogan’s contract does not end in 2023. That statement contradicts a 2020 report from The New York Times that claims Rogan signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with Spotify that year.
The content of Rogan’s podcast has caused internal strife at Spotify. His stances on the trans community and the safety of vaccines have led to employees pushing back on executives about the deal. Courtney Holt — the executive who brought Rogan to the company — is no longer employed at Spotify, which is one of the issues Tani described in the “frayed” relationship.
Rogan has publicly stated that his comments on vaccines nearly led to the dissolution of his relationship with Spotify. However, Rogan has been adamant in the past that he will end the deal if he was to lose the creative control of the podcast.
“I will quit. If it gets to a point that I can’t do it anymore, where I have to do it in some sort of weird way where I walk on eggshells and mind my p’s and q’s, f–k that!” Rogan said during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience in 2022.
Should his relationship with Spotify come to an end, it is likely several other platforms would be interested in acquiring the rights to Rogan’s podcast. It is reported The Joe Rogan Experience averages 11 million listeners per episode.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek admitted that some of the company’s podcasting endeavors haven’t panned out, calling some ventures in 2022 “a mistake“. A deal between the platform and Barack and Michelle Obama ended in 2022 after a three-year contract wasn’t renewed.
