Podcasting Get The Royal Seal Of Approval
Spotify has just penned a multi-year partnership deal with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s brand new audio company called Archewell Audio.
This is really interesting for a couple of reasons.
It’s yet another example of the fact that podcasting — and the podcast medium — is now becoming mainstream and is going to get even more leveraged mainstream attention. I mean, every time Prince Harry and Meghan do something, it creates fairly big news headlines and causes waves of excitement, so it ain’t going to get much bigger than this for the audio sector!
So the fact that they’re creating their own podcast is big news and the second point of interest is the fact that they’re not just doing a podcast for Spotify as some sort of booked-talent presenting gig, they’re doing it underneath their own company.
Archewell Audio is going to be an ‘audio-first production company’, according to the Spotify press release, and this is the latest of these sorts of deals for the podcasting sector, which is another example of people who’ve got a big brand, that they can leverage, keeping hold of their valuable intellectual property.
This deal is a multi-year partnership with Spotify to produce the podcasts but, ultimately, Archewell Audio - as a company — will still own the intellectual property.
Traditionally, up until this point, the big media players like BBC, Bauer, Sky or Global will create the content and they’ll produce the podcasts but, obviously, they then own the IP of those shows. What we’re seeing happening more and more now is people who’ve got big profiles, who are creating almost their own ‘umbrella’ production companies, so they can leverage the opportunity to do partnership deals, rather than just do a straight ‘talent’ deal, where there is a payment for being a ‘talking head’ and that’s about it.
The other reason this deal is intriguing for us pod-geeks is because this is going to be one of the first big shows from Spotify that is being created by the Gimlet studio arm of the business. For those that don’t know Spotify bought out Gimlet Media — which is a podcast production company — for about $230 million a few years ago. Initially a lot of people just perceived that the Gimlet deal was to secure ownership of their incredible back catalogue of content and popular shows that Gimlet had already created — and their ability to make great ‘branded audio’ programming for household name companies — but their content creation skills have proved so powerful that the internal ‘original’ audio arm of Spotify seems to be sitting under the Gimlet banner right now.
Gimlet — in my humble opinion — are masterful story tellers, so it is going to be interesting to see (and hear!) what happens when you combine a profile like Harry and Megan have, with the storytelling ability of Gimlet at the helm and in the reach of Spotify’s platform!
Is today’s news another reason for Apple Podcasts to be shaking in their digital boots?
Surely they’re going to have to offer some form of competition to the growing acceleration of Spotify!?
And, if you are thinking ‘do the Duke and Duchess even like podcasts?’, (I feel like a script writer for The Crown right now!) apparently they do.
“What we love about podcasting is that it reminds all of us to take a moment and to really listen, to connect to one another without distraction,” The Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in a joint statement. “With the challenges of 2020, there has never been a more important time to do so, because when we hear each other, and hear each other’s stories, we are reminded of how interconnected we all are.” Ohhh, a bit of subliminal messaging in there as well as, right!
I wonder if The Queen has subscribed yet?
Want to hear how Harry and Meghan sound on the mic? Take a listen HERE
