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With ties to both the music industry and radio, podcasting remains mostly unregulated and diverse.
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Podcasting is still the relative wild west as an industry and medium. This sounds fine on the surface (and similar to the infamous “ not a journalist, but an entertainer” claims made by Australian shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones), but in practice Rogan’s words are heard by many more people than the average comedian just having a chat. Rogan maintains he is just a comedian having long form conversations. Most important in all of this is the audience. In response, Spotify have finally released some “ platform rules”, but they are generalised statements that avoid infringing the freedom of creators such as Rogan. Neil Young’s ultimatum to Spotify shows streaming platforms are now a battleground where artists can leverage power The author drew particular attention to Rogan’s “right-wing misinformation and bigotry”, “anti-trans rhetoric” and “COVID-19 misinformation”.Ī collection of medical professionals have campaigned against misinformation on the platform, and artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have removed their work from Spotify. He amplified disgraced radio host Alex Jones, who had spread a lie that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen (apparently causing internal conflict at Spotify last year as a result).Īccording to a report by Media Matters, which studied the Joe Rogan Experience for a year, Rogan regularly trafficks misinformation and bigotry. He added a correction, albeit a small one, and these types of mistakes have become memes since then.įar more seriously, Rogan has peddled egregious conspiracy theories and disinformation. One ironic example occurred when Rogan circulated a fake ad made by Gruen to represent Australia’s pandemic propaganda – made funnier given the ad parodied people who relied on Rogan’s advice rather than medical professionals.
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He says what he thinks and feels in the moment, harnessing the compelling emotional power of the voice in a similar way to the great radio broadcasters of any age. Part of Rogan’s appeal is his rawness – with episodes regularly two to three hours long and with minimal (if any) editing. A study by The Verge showed Rogan gained fans when he first made the exclusive podcasting deal. Signing an exclusive deal with Rogan could “make” Spotify as a podcasting platform of choice (and audio empire generally), or it could see Rogan lose fans who couldn’t be bothered to move with him.
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Winer made the conscious decision to make RSS free and universal, in order to preserve a democratic ethos for podcasting similar to the recently created blogs he loved. In 2001, US “media hacker” Dave Winer made public RSS, the Really Simple Syndication feed that could automatically “drop” a podcast episode online to a subscriber.
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Prior to Rogan signing for Spotify, exclusivity in podcasting was unheard of. The rest of the country should start paying attention.” The Atlantic places gender at the heart of his appeal, suggesting “ understands men in America better than most people do. Some 57% of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k”, with an average age of 24. Media Monitors says Rogan’s listenership is “71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates. What’s important about Joe Rogan is also the type of listener he attracts. Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry Spotify’s other stellar podcast hosts include Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Spotify can justify the spectacular outlay: there is a ton of advertising dollars to be made in spoken word audio, where podcasting is eating up what was once radio’s domain.
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