Breaking News…
Joe Rogan has been offered $100 million to exclusively broadcast and host his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” on YouTube alternative platform, Rumble. If he accepts, Rumble may not be considered any sort of “alternative”, just as Spotify isn’t really considered an “alternative”. Should Mr. Rogan accept the deal, he would leave Spotify, and almost certainly take his average 11 million viewers with him.
Rogan has been under fire over the weekend and for the past few weeks in a concerted effort that may be under the direction of a group called Meidas Touch, itself funded by allegedly by Super PACs.
The CEO for Rumble, Chris Pavlovski, has reached out publicly with the offer to Rogan:
Hey @joerogan, we are ready to fight alongside you. See the note from our CEO @chrispavlovski… pic.twitter.com/G7ahfNNjtP
— Rumble 🏴☠️ (@rumblevideo) February 7, 2022
This is in sharp contrast to Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, who had this to say about Rogan over the weekend:
Another criticism that I continue to hear from many of you is that it’s not just about The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify; it comes down to our direct relationship with him. In last week’s Town Hall, I outlined to you that we are not the publisher of JRE. But perception due to our exclusive license implies otherwise. So I’ve been wrestling with how this perception squares with our values.
If we believe in having an open platform as a core value of the company, then we must also believe in elevating all types of creators, including those from underrepresented communities and a diversity of backgrounds. We’ve been doing a great deal of work in this area already but I think we can do even more. So I am committing to an incremental investment of $100 million for the licensing, development, and marketing of music (artists and songwriters) and audio content from historically marginalized groups. This will dramatically increase our efforts in these areas. While some might want us to pursue a different path, I believe that more speech on more issues can be highly effective in improving the status quo and enhancing the conversation altogether.
I deeply regret that you are carrying so much of this burden. I also want to be transparent in setting the expectation that in order to achieve our goal of becoming the global audio platform, these kinds of disputes will be inevitable. For me, I come back to centering on our mission of unlocking the potential of human creativity and enabling more than a billion people to enjoy the work of what we think will be more than 50 million creators. That mission makes these clashes worth the effort.
I’ve told you several times over the last week, but I think it’s critical we listen carefully to one another and consider how we can and should do better. I’ve spent this time having lots of conversations with people inside and outside of Spotify – some have been supportive while others have been incredibly hard, but all of them have made me think.
One of the things I am thinking about is what additional steps we can take to further balance creator expression with user safety. I’ve asked our teams to expand the number of outside experts we consult with on these efforts and look forward to sharing more details.
Your passion for this company and our mission has made a difference in the lives of so many listeners and creators around the world. I hope you won’t lose sight of that. It’s that ability to focus and improve Spotify even on some of our toughest days that has helped us build the platform we have. We have a clear opportunity to learn and grow together from this challenge and I am ready to meet it head on.
I know it is difficult to have these conversations play out so publicly, and I continue to encourage you to reach out to your leaders, your HR partners or me directly if you need support or resources for yourself or your team.
— David Ek, Spotify CEO
