Yahoo News Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Part Ways With Spotify
UPDATED with statement: The Sussexes have separated from Spotify, Deadline has confirmed.
As part of their reported $20 million deal with Spotify inked back in 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had the podcast Archetypes, which the latter hosted. The show, which explored labels that held women back and touted such guests as Trevor Noah, Mariah Carey, Mindy Kaling and Serena Williams, won’t be getting a second season despite talks.
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“Spotify and Archewell Audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together,” Spotify and the couple’s Archewell Audio said Thursday in a joint statement.
We hear the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are rethinking their deals to find better homes and partnerships for content. There’s also a chance that Archetypes could wind up elsewhere.
At the end of April, Markle signed with WME with the agency also repping Archewell, the couple’s content creation label. Building the duo’s film and TV production, brand partnerships and overall businesses is the priority at WME, where here team includes Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and brand rep Brad Slater.
Out of the gate, Archetypes launched at the top of Spotify’s podcast charts last August, notched a People’s Choice Award and was also No. 1 internationally when it debuted.
The news Thursday comes as Spotify laid off 200 employees, notably audio engineers. The cuts followed a larger staff reduction earlier this year when 6% of its total workforce (then at 9,800) were shown the door. One big exit was TV vet and former Condé Nast Entertainment boss Dawn Ostroff, who was key at Spotify in signing pricey and prolific talent deals. During her tenure, Spotify shelled out more than $1 billion acquiring podcast assets and locking up exclusive deals with such talent as Joe Rogan and Dax Shepard.
At the end of April, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the streaming audio giant was going to be “very diligent” in assessing future investments in podcasting as several of the company’s rich talent deals come up for renewal.
The Joe Rogan Experience, Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain, Distractible with Markiplier and Armchair Expert are all talent-driven Spotify shows currently in the top 25 of charts.
Despite adding a reported 83 million monthly users worldwide in Q4 last year, Spotify saw losses mushroom by 10 times with a net loss of $470M U.S. off revenues of $12.8 billion in 2022. Nonetheless they stand at 515M monthly users worldwide in 2023, +22% from a year earlier. This has spiked Spotify’s stock to $152.18M, +44% from a year ago thanks to strong user growth.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news of the Sussexes exit from Spotify.
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