By Cliff Dumas

Spotify’s purchase of exclusive rights to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” sent the company’s stock soaring: It added $1.7 billion to its market cap in 23 minutes.

Joe Rogan’s deal comes at a time when the pandemic has cut the legs out from under many publications. Why do companies and brands continue to expand and spend on podcasting? The timing of Rogan’s rise and the Old Guard’s disintegration is not coincidental. His success was made possible, at least in part, by legacy media’s blind spots. While publishers like Condé Nast, GQ’s publisher, has laid off some 100 employees since the pandemic began podcasts continue to grow. “The Joe Rogan Experience” has 190 million downloads a month.

Podcasting's Netflix moment: the global battle for domination

“The Joe Rogan Experience” is the second significant acquisition by Spotify for its growing podcast business, after the company bought US sports broadcaster The Ringer outright for nearly $200m in February.

Both deals, as well as smaller forays into exclusive content around topics such as gaming, true crime, and relationship advice, lie at the heart of Spotify’s attempts to transform podcasting from an industry built around a mishmash of open standards and traditional advertising into a platform economy – with Spotify at the centre.

Amazon Chases Spotify in Podcasts

Under growing pressure from Spotify, the e-commerce giant is looking to spend big on podcasting. 

In recent months, Audible, the audiobook service owned by Amazon.com Inc., has been meeting with talent agencies and producers to discuss acquiring potential new podcast projects—or, in the terminology that Audible prefers, “Audible Originals.” Audible is offering anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to a few million dollars per show, according to people familiar with the matter, more than every competitor except Spotify Technology SA.

So far, Audible has already purchased shows from documentary producer John Battsek, as well as from comedians Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. Amazon’s Audible is chasing Spotify into the exploding content ecosystem of podcasting.

Legendary television host and interviewer Larry King has signed a deal reportedly worth $5m for his first-ever podcast. The Millionth Question, focusing on entertainment and celebrity, will debut in mid-June. The show is being produced by 4forty4, a media company owned by Jeff Beacher and Larry’s son, Chance.

Podcasting continues to emerge as the new and exciting platform consumers crave and covet as their go to content space to enjoy drama, news, comedy, entertainment, education, opinion all on demand served conveniently on any device anywhere anytime. Brands, celebrities, content provides, storytellers all recognize the incredible opportunity to create revenue by delivering interesting, compelling content their audience wants to listen to.

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