Walled Gardening

The primary result of Joe Rogan's deal to take his podcast to Spotify has been a bumper crop of opinions about what it all means for podcasting. Everyone has a take on whether this is good or bad for the future of podcasting, whether Spotify is trying to "take over" the business, whether they paid too much... as always with podcasting, everyone's an expert, even when they're not.

Here's my take: Calm down.

It's interesting, actually, that anyone thinks that Spotify buying up content is going to destroy the open nature of the medium, creating a walled garden of haves versus the have-nots outside. It's undoubtedly true that Spotify grabbing one of the highest-profile podcasts and its video component means that the show's loyal audience will be motivated to sign up for Spotify, and they will likely do so in large enough numbers to justify the reported $100 million price tag. This is just a business move, and it appears at this stage to be a shrewd, if expensive, one.

It also turns out that "The Joe Rogan Experience" is not the only podcast in existence. There remain hundreds of thousands of active podcasts available with or without Spotify. Out of those, a small percentage are big enough to be profitable; Spotify hasn't purchased all of them, and most are available both on Spotify and in the Apple Podcasts ecosystem. That is not going to change.

Wait, though. Isn't Spotify's aim to keep people within its app for all audio entertainment needs? Sure. And, so what? Because this is basically what's happened with television. There are many TV options, broadcast, cable, and streaming. Most have exclusive content deals. If you want to watch "Stranger Things" or "Ozark," you have to subscribe to Netflix and watch it on their app. If you want "Letterkenny" or "Normal People" or "Bob's Burgers" reruns, you'll have to go to Hulu. If you want "Fleabag" or "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," you go to Amazon Prime Video. You get the idea. And there's a sort-of-open ecosystem, too, YouTube and Vimeo, where you can find all kinds of content. WarnerMedia took "Friends" reruns away from Netflix and is putting them on its own HBO Max, another walled garden. Are people saying that doing that is an attempt to corner the television market? Not really. It's just a business move.

Which is to say that the content is, um, the content. If people want it, they'll find it. Radio has an even more direct example: Howard Stern went to SiriusXM and it didn't kill radio even as it proved an effective and successful move for satellite. SiriusXM has exclusive content and people are willing to pay for it, but it's just one option for radio and AM/FM is another. Podcasting will be the same: You want Joe Rogan or Joe Budden or Jemele Hill or whatever exclusive content Gimlet and Parcast generate, you'll fire up Spotify. You want "The Daily" or Adam Carolla or "Planet Money," you'll use Apple or Google or whatever RSS-based app you prefer. Some will be available only within other apps. Some will be put behind paywalls like Stitcher Premium or Luminary. The success or failure of these options will be based on whether the content is worth the effort and/or expense. And, yes, having Joe Rogan for at least a few years means more people will use Spotify for podcasts, but it doesn't close the rest of the podcasting world down.

It's also a reminder that, as I wrote about a little while back, we're seeing podcasting becoming two worlds, the elite and the rest of us. That's fine. If you're expecting to start a podcast and be Joe Rogan, well, you're not Joe Rogan, but you can be successful whether or not you build an audience as big as his. You can even be on Spotify yourself -- I am! -- but they're probably not gonna pay you (at least they don't strip the ads out of your show, so there's that). It doesn't matter unless you start with unreasonable expectations. For most of us, the path to success is the same: make good content, put it everywhere you can, and get the word out. Even if Spotify made their app closed off from outside podcasts, they wouldn't own podcasting. They're, what, ten percent of the podcasting platform business? That's impressive growth but it's hardly a monopoly. Netflix didn't prevent other platforms from getting established and thriving, and Spotify is unlikely to do that to podcasting.

So, go forth and make your podcasts and be reasonably assured that there will be many platforms to get your shows into people's ears. Maybe you'll grow into the next Joe Rogan, or maybe you'll be the first you. Either way is fine. And when someone's willing to pay $100 million or more for a few years of the rights to ANY podcast, it's a good sign for the medium's future.

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Whether you've sold your show for millions or not, you need stuff to talk about on your radio show or podcast, and that's what you'll find at Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, which you can find by clicking here and/or following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item.

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"The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," my podcast, will be rebounding from the technical issues that kept it silent last week, with new episodes coming starting Wednesday. Time to listen and subscribe by clicking here or finding it on Spotify (no Rogan deal for me, but I'm open to it, Mr. Ek), iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and all the other usual podcast places, and on Amazon Alexa-enabled devices by saying "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

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Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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