Joe Rogan Again Had Spotify’s No. 1 Podcast in 2023. Will He Reach a New Deal With the Streamer?

Controversial podcaster Joe Rogan reliably generates a large and bro-heavy audience for Spotify. But will his show remain exclusively available on Spotify?

“The Joe Rogan Experience,” exclusive to Spotify under a 2020 deal, again clocked in with the most popular show on the platform for 2023. The company revealed the top 25 rankings for the U.S. and globally as part of this year’s Spotify Wrapped annual marketing event. The lists ranks shows by unique users who listen to at least two minutes of an episode; audiences for translated podcasts available in multiple languages are combined. (See the full lists below.)

Rogan’s Spotify deal is worth more than $200 million over three and a half years, per a source confirming a New York Times report. That suggests the pact expires sometime in early or mid-2024.

As strong a performer as Rogan’s show is, retaining exclusive distribution rights would cost a pretty penny. And Spotify is under pressure to rein in content spending and demonstrate the company can generate a return on podcast investments. CEO Daniel Ek told analysts earlier this year that “we’re going to be very diligent in how we invest in future [podcast] content deals,” although he hasn’t addressed Rogan specifically in this context. (Spotify declined to comment on negotiations with Rogan.)

Is Rogan worth the money — and the headaches? The comedian-actor turned podcaster regularly invites provocative guests on “JRE,” and Rogan and Spotify have faced protests over some of his material, including a boycott by some music artists in early 2022 over Rogan’s anti-vax episodes. Of course, Rogan may decide to walk away from Spotify and take his fanbase with him; it’s conceivable he could put the podcast behind his own paywall, say, for a limited exclusive window. Meanwhile, he attracts a demo desirable for certain advertisers: Of those who said they listened to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” 81% were men and 56% were 18-34, according to a recent YouGov U.K. survey.

The success of Spotify’s podcast strategy doesn’t really depend on having “The Joe Rogan Experience” exclusively. The company’s lineup of original podcasts, which pull in millions of listeners, includes the No. 2 show on the platform — interview show “Call Her Daddy” with Alex Cooper, which Spotify says is the most-listened-to podcast among women. In the U.S., alongside “JRE” and “Call Her Daddy,” Spotify has nine originals in the top 25: Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” (#7), “Anything Goes With Emma Chamberlain” (#10), The Wall Street Journal’s “The Journal.” (#13); “Serial Killers” (#18); “Conspiracy Theories” (#21); Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach’s “Distractible” (#22); and “Science Vs” (#25).

In addition, according to Spotify, several of its original podcasts were among the “most anticipated” shows globally from U.S. creators this year. Those included “Hot Mess With Alix Earle,” a show hosted by the TikTok star produced byAlex Cooper‘sUnwell Network; “What Now? With Trevor Noah,” a long-form interview podcast from “The Daily Show” alum; and DC’s Batman series “The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark” starring Hasan Minhaj.

After five years in podcasting, Spotify has a better understanding of what works — and what doesn’t. The company has pared back its slate of original podcasts, canceling shows it said were underperforming, and laid off staffers as part of a reorganization. And some of its exclusive deals with high-profile talent have ended after they didn’t pan out, including the pact with Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, which after three years had yielded just one series.

Spotify’s podcast biz has been operating at a loss, but the company believes podcasts can achieve potential gross margins of 40%-50% within the next five years — even higher than its 30%-35% gross margin target for music, CFO Paul Vogel said last year.

On Spotify’s Q3 2023 earnings call last month, Vogel told investors that “we’ve seen improvements in the podcasting business” and that the company expects podcasting “to soon reach break-even and then become something that’s actually additive to gross profit.” In the third quarter, Spotify reported an all-time high of sold impressions in Q3 for the Spotify Audience Network and Original and Licensed shows. Globally, nearly a quarter of advertisers have doubled their spend year-over-year and about one-third of its music advertisers also buy podcasts (up nearly 75% year over year).

Spotify says it now counts more than 100 million podcast listeners, and that over half a billion people have listened to a podcast on the platform since the company entered the space in 2019. Today, the service hosts more than 5 million podcast shows available in more than 170 markets.

Spotify is the most-used audio podcast platform in many key markets around the world and remains the No. 1 podcast publisher in the U.S., according to the most recent Edison Research data. It is also the most used podcast platform among Gen Z in the U.S.

Globally on Spotify, the top podcast category for men is comedy (a category that includes “The Joe Rogan Experience”); for women, it’s health and fitness. Spotify said the top five fastest-growing podcast categories globally in 2023 were: society and culture; education; religion and spirituality; health and fitness; and business and technology.

Here are the rankings of the top podcasts on Spotify this year in the U.S. and worldwide:

Top 25 Podcasts in the U.S.

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Call Her Daddy
3. Crime Junkie
4. This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
5. The Daily (New York Times)
6. Huberman Lab
7. Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard
8. SmartLess
9. NPR’s Up First
10. Anything Goes With Emma Chamberlain
11. 2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer
12. Morbid
13. The Journal. (Wall Street Journal)
14. Stuff You Should Know
15. On Purpose With Jay Shetty
16. Lex Fridman Podcast
17. NPR News Now
18. Serial Killers
19. New Heights With Jason and Travis Kelce
20. Dateline NBC
21. Conspiracy Theories
22. Distractible
23. The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
24. The Psychology of Your 20s
25. Science Vs

Top 25 Podcasts Globally

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Call Her Daddy
3. Huberman Lab
4. Anything Goes With Emma Chamberlain
5. On Purpose With Jay Shetty
6. Crime Junkie
7. This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
8. Serial Killers
9. The Diary of a CEO With Steven Bartlett
10. TED Talks Daily
11. Relatos de la Noche
12. Case 63 (all languages)
13. Psicologia al Desnudo
14. The Daily (New York Times)
15. Lex Fridman Podcast
16. Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard
17. El Podcast de Marian Rojas Estapé
18. Gemischtes Hack
19. The Psychology of Your 20s
20. Stuff You Should Know
21. SmartLess
22. La Cotorrisa Podcast
23. Se Regalan Dudas
24. The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
25. Conspiracy Theories