Part of the appeal of podcasts for Spotify is that they represent a different type of listening: rather than an album every two or three years from a favourite artist, there is new content every week, at least. No longer just a music streaming service, Spotify now regards itself as an audio platform and podcasting as its new centre of gravity.
Rogangate says a tremendous amount about Spotify’s new priorities. Is he happy for Spotify to amplify medical misinformation through, among others, its crown-jewel podcast, a show it paid a rumoured $100m (£75m) to have on an exclusive basis? Or will he have the company tightly police and factcheck what its podcasters say? The rapidly curdling, and inherently Faustian nature of the Rogan deal should not surprise anyone. What is unfolding is a complex ethical and financial conundrum for Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder and CEO. This is a company where diversity is applauded, paternity leave is encouraged, the mental wellbeing of staff is deemed paramount and efforts to promote artists from outside of a heterosexual and Caucasian orthodoxy have become part of the raison d’etre – such as the Unlike Any Other initiative around Pride 2020 and the Frequency campaign in 2021, which was intended to help elevate Black artists. These recent moves feel like a grand betrayal of Spotify’s roots in liberal Sweden, where it was founded. In the past, fights tended to be around commercial issues, with artists arguing the micro-payments it made for streams were unfairly low this new conflict is remarkable for being entirely ideological. The decision from Spotify draws an entirely new battle line for the service when facing down artists. Young had the courage of his convictions – and the backing of his long-term label Reprise Records (part of Warner Music Group), because, as he said in a statement on his website, removing his music would mean “losing 60% of my worldwide streaming income in the name of Truth”. This claim was supported in a letter sent to the streaming service earlier this month, signed by 270 medical and scientific professionals who called for Spotify to stop spreading Rogan’s unfounded point of view. Young’s objections were based on what he saw as “life-threatening Covid misinformation” being pushed by Rogan. Spotify chose Rogan, removing Young’s entire back catalogue. The Canadian-American musician criticised its exclusive hosting of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in a letter to his manager and record label published online, which asked his music be removed from the streaming service. In a post on Sunday, Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek laid out more transparent platform rules given the backlash stirred by Young, who on Wednesday had his music removed from Spotify after the tech giant declined to get rid of episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, which has been criticised for spreading coronavirus misinformation.N eil Young this week issued Spotify with a blunt ultimatum: it’s me or Joe Rogan. It comes after singer-songwriters Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from Spotify in protest against the popular streaming service allowing the airing of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. Rogan additionally welcomed the idea of adding advisories before podcasts related to COVID-19. Rogan noted that he earlier sat down on the show with Dr Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN, Dr Michael Osterholm, who is a member of President Joe Biden's COVID-19 advisory board, and Dr Peter Hotez from Baylor College of Medicine. He also said that he schedules the guests on his podcast himself, and that he would try to book doctors with different opinions right after he talks to "the controversial ones". "I've never tried to do anything with this podcast other than to just talk to people." “I'm not trying to promote misinformation, I'm not trying to be controversial,” Rogan said.
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