Kim Kardashian To Become The Next Podcast Superstar?

More big news coming out of the Spotify camp this week, as the Swedish media giant stakes another claim to become the dominant player in the podcast world in an attempt to steal the crown from Apple, by agreeing another exclusive content deal; this time with Kim Kardashian West.

The world sat up and took note last month as the streaming brand penned a landmark deal with comedian and mega podcaster Joe Rogan — with reports stating that Spotify paid the comic $100,000,000 for the exclusive rights to his show

and they’re making headlines again as they have just signed a deal with arguably the world’s most famous reality TV star, who will be bringing a criminal justice show to the platform.

Kim is following in the footsteps of her Dad by becoming a lawyer and, as part of her apprenticeship, has become involved in the Innocence Project which focuses on exonerating wrongly convicted individuals — the podcast will focus on the investigative work related to that project.

The deal has been brokered in a way that allows Kim to co-produce and co-host the show, which — once again — shows that Spotify is happy to leave the show production process to the content creators and not get too heavily involved. It seems that they are interested in exclusivity and chipping away at Apple’s existing market share.

There have been no official monetary figures released about this deal, but it is unlikely to have the same 9 figure price tag as the recent Rogan acquisition as Kim won’t be mobilising an existing podcast audience to the platform… although a few ‘swipe up’ mentions to her 179 million followers on Instagram is likely to create a big wave of new listeners to Spotify.

This deal is latest in a series of big acquisitions from Spotify which, in the last 18 months alone, has purchased:
* Gimlet Media
* LA-based Parcast
* service provider Anchor,
* The Ringer

and also has a multi-year deal with Higher Ground which is Barak and Michelle Obama’s production company.

No doubt the podcast purists will be out in force again, bemoaning the loss of love for the art, the danger of allowing a single platform to dominate and whinging about how this effects ‘the little guys’ but, in my humble opinion, this is another great result for the industry. ‘All boats rise in a high tide’ and the increased awareness and rising budgets in the marketplace show where the medium is going.