We’re some way past the era of single-service exclusives on new albums, bar the odd outlier. But we could be entering a new wave of exclusivity agreements for another kind of content that’s increasingly prominent on streaming services: podcasts.
Witness Spotify’s announcement yesterday that it has signed an exclusive deal with popular hip-hop show The Joe Budden Podcast. From 12 September, the series will be a Spotify exclusive, with two episodes a week being made available through the platform.
“The podcast has been a great amplifier for my voice but fast growing into a platform for more and more artists to share their own personal feelings, stories and experiences,” said Budden in a statement.
It’s just the new series of the podcast that’s exclusive to Spotify: past series will “continue to be available on all channels where it has previously been distributed”.
There’s a risk here, more for Budden than for Spotify, about annoying long-time listeners who prefer to use other apps for their podcasts, and who may be subscribed to a service other than Spotify for music-streaming.
We suspect the financial rewards made the risk worthwhile for him though: recent gossip at music conferences has suggested Spotify paid a seven-digit sum for Amy Schumer’s ‘3 Girls, 1 Keith’ podcast as an original for the platform, so it’s certainly splashing the cash for spoken-word content.
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