Spotify Podcaster
Joe Rogan apologizes after racism allegations
Podcaster Joe Rogan in Seattle in 2012. Photo: Gregory Payan/AP/dpa
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Joe Rogan is a hugely popular podcaster. But now he is causing more and more trouble for the streaming giant Spotify, this time with allegations of racism. At the same time, Rogan is a mainstay of the Swedes’ strategy.
The controversy surrounding US podcaster Joe Rogan on Spotify has flared up again: After the debate about incorrect information about the corona virus, he now had to apologize for using racist words.
The music streaming market leader Spotify has meanwhile removed numerous older episodes of Rogan’s podcast, but is sticking to the cooperation with the 54-year-old.
Grammy winner India Arie got the ball rolling, and on Friday published a compilation of video fragments in which Rogan used the “N-word” around two dozen times. The term “N-word” describes a racist term for black people. The social norm in America today is that white people should not use the word under any circumstances. The clip also saw Rogan refer to a primarily black area as the “Planet of the Apes.”
Rogan responded on Instagram on Saturday: “I’m making this video to talk about the most regrettable and shameful thing I’ve ever had to speak out about.” He hadn’t used the “N-word” in years, he justified himself. “It’s not a word I’m allowed to use.” He never used it to be racist. “But whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say, ‘I’m not racist,’ you screwed it up. And I definitely screwed it up.”
Spotify boss Daniel Ek wrote in an e-mail to the employees, which was available to the “Wall Street Journal” and the tech blog “The Verge”, among others, that they had spoken to Rogan about the older podcast episodes. Then he asked for it to be removed. According to the website jremissing.com, which automatically checks their availability, Spotify is now missing 113 episodes.
Rogan recently hit the headlines because musicians like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell accused Spotify of tolerating misinformation about the corona virus in podcasts and thus endangering human lives. They referred in particular to Rogan’s popular talk podcast, which can only be heard on Spotify after an exclusive deal. According to media reports, the streaming service once attracted Rogan with 100 million dollars (currently 88.5 million euros).
This is also something that particularly bothered India Arie. Spotify’s revenue came mostly from subscription fees from users wanting to listen to music – and songs by black artists made up the majority of the streams, she argued. “So you’re taking this money and investing it in this guy?” And that too, while the musicians get fractions of pennies per stream, the artist criticized. “Pay us!”
Ek announced in his email that Spotify is now investing $100 million in music and other audio content from communities that have been excluded. He condemned Rogan’s comments, stressing that they did not reflect Spotify’s values. At the same time, Ek reiterated that the service sees itself as a platform and not as a publisher. According to this definition, Spotify bears no editorial responsibility for the published contributions – unlike, for example, a media house. This position was recently criticized with reference to Rogan’s exclusive deal with Spotify.
He doesn’t think “silencing Joe is the answer,” Ek wrote. “We should have clear guidelines on content and step in when they’re exceeded – but muting voices is a dangerous path.”
Spotify also has economic reasons for sticking with Rogan. Podcasts have traditionally been available in a variety of places after the genre became popular with the spread of Apple’s iPod music players (hence the name). Years ago, however, Ek began investing hundreds of millions of dollars to turn Spotify into something of a podcast superpower. Among other things, he spent money on platforms for the production and distribution of podcasts – as well as for exclusive contracts with prominent podcasters.
The goal behind this is to cement Spotify’s position as number one not only for music from the Internet, but also for audio content of all kinds. The music offer is about the same for all streaming services. But if you can only hear popular podcasters in one place, you can stand out from the competition and hope for a pull effect. It also makes negotiations easier when it comes to getting the Spotify app in Tesla cars, for example.
So far, the calculation has worked out for Spotify: Rogan was the most listened to podcaster last year, including in the important US market, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing informed people. The service is still the clear number one in the music streaming business with 406 million users, of which 180 million are paying subscribers.