Joe Rogan + Spotify
what happens when corporations, big tech, and censors meet a worthy opponent?
Imagine being an executive at Spotify right now.
I imagine you’re in a difficult place. You have thousands of artists to keep happy. You are a public company which means you have obnoxious shareholders and short-sellers to manage. You have to deal with/manage your board members who could be a part of very important business relationships and/or accounts for the company. You have thousands of employees, many of which are in Silicon Valley and likely hate working for you, but do it anyways because of the pay and prestige. You have marketing and PR trying to manage the company’s image with subscribers.
And of course you have Joe Rogan and all the controversy that comes with Joe Rogan.
In case you are living under a rock, read this:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/joe-rogan-podcast-controversy-is-spotifys-facebook-moment.html
and this:
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1076891070/joe-rogan-has-responded-to-the-spotify-protests-over-his-podcast
What makes this controversy especially difficult for Spotify is that Rogan is discussing a difficult, complex topic that many of Spotify’s peers have decided to censor. That is, Rogan is putting guests on his show who are saying things the government, tech companies, and the American Left do not want the public to know about or hear about as citizens.
So what should Spotify do?
Arguably, this controversy is precisely why business executives are highly paid — keep the company thriving and profitable despite all the challenges facing you.
But the Joe Rogan controversy isn’t going away anytime soon and the company might start to lose money. You have a difficult decision on your hand right now. Do you fire Joe Rogan? Do you wait and hope this all goes away? The decision is difficult because:
The federal government could get involved with Spotify’s business if they don’t “do something” regarding Joe Rogan
Other big tech companies are comfortable with censorship and see it as a part of their business plans. Spotify and its employees may share this view and pressure leadership to censor Joe
You will have to pay Joe Rogan to go away. Likely a gigantic sum of money if you want to avoid costly litigation
Joe could go to one of your competitors (Apple?) and start his show there
The people who signed up for Spotify for Joe Rogan could leave the platform
Joe could even go out on his own and likely make even more money if he had the right type of sponsors and sponsors decided to follow him
Other artists could leave the platform or threaten to leave if you don’t fire him
Users could leave the platform which could lead to even more artists leaving the platform in a vicious, downward cycle
Your employees could get angry and could begin a broader campaign within the company to force Joe Rogan out (see google, apple)
Continued press on the Joe Rogan affair may lead to new users, but it could end up angering key shareholders or board members who might hate this type of publicity
Either way, you are walking a tight rope with your stakeholders (subscribers, artists, leadership, employees) and your company’s biggest star. Do you censor your star and let him go? Or do you honor your contract and try to make this controversy go away?
One could argue that this type of controversy is possibly why Spotify signed Joe Rogan for $100+ million. They knew Joe was controversial. They knew they would be unable to censor him in the short-term or have a say in what goes on in his show. They knew Joe’s guests are not the typical podcast guests who say bland, boring things which conform with prevailing orthodoxy. They knew people would get mad (really mad) when he said things about COVID they didn’t like.
That was the bet: have Joe say controversial (or some would say thoughtful) things and use his content to build more subscribers, grow revenue and steal talent from Spotify’s competitors. If Spotify was the only place to find Joe Rogan, plenty of new people would pay for that content and then discover other content on Spotify they might not have known about before.
But Joe’s popularity is a double edged sword and essentially puts Spotify in an impossible situation at this point: heads Joe wins, and tails Joe wins when it comes to content the government and/or big tech may want to censor.
That is, if they keep Joe, his popularity will continue to grow exponentially. Spotify might lose other artists and they might lose subscribers but Joe will continue to get paid and stay in the spotlight.
If they fire him, Joe will go somewhere else, control his finances, and continue growing his platform…and likely at one of Spotify’s competitors. Spotify will have a huge lawsuit on its hands if it decides not to pay Rogan when they fire him.
No matter what Spotify decides to do (and the answer could be nothing, wait for everything to blow over), the key takeaways from this affair are the following:
Joe Rogan proves the theory that “talent rules the entertainment industry”
Joe Rogan’s “controversy” will likely enhance his brand long term (as it should)
Joe Rogan has the upper hand with Spotify (as he should)
Spotify is in a very difficult situation right now which could become worse if other artists decide to leave and the company is forced to decide between keeping their star content provider or alienating the rest of their artists
Joe Rogan is a prime example of how to stand up against big tech censorship
When you provide content that people cannot find anywhere else that is thought provoking, from credible people and timely (concerning issues of the day), you have a winning formula
The formula is: provide content which is fair, balanced, and credible which people want to consume and cannot find elsewhere. Build your audience and sponsorship ($$) to a point where it is too big to fail and force your employer to call your bluff when it comes to controversial content you’ve produced
Obviously, not many people besides Joe Rogan can pull this off - that is why he deserves to be so highly paid and why he has full control over his content
Joe Rogan and his guests are likely speaking the truth when it comes to COVID. Even if he is not, however, he still has the right to air these views on his show because he controls the show.
My guess is that Joe Rogan would not have gone to Spotify if they did not give him full control over the content on his show.
Without full editorial control, Joe Rogan becomes a victim of censorship and Big Tech.