Welcome to Recode Media with Peter Kafka.

That is me coming to you nearly live on digital tape because this is a semi-emergency podcast.

We only break out the semi-emergency podcast when a really big thing happens usually in podcasting

and something really big is happening in podcasting.

Welcome, producer Zach Mack.

How are you?

What's going on, Peter?

I'm doing well.

Crazy day. We break glass and bring Zach going on, Peter? I'm doing well. Crazy day.

We break, we break glass and bring Zach out in case of semi-emergencies. The semi-emergency is that

Spotify has not bought Joe Rogan, but it kind of has bought Joe Rogan. Do we call him the biggest

name in podcasting today, Zach? He's definitely, he's the biggest individual in podcasting, for sure.

He is the biggest star in podcast. Without a doubt. The only show that rivals is his is like New York Times, the daily. Yeah, they can't buy the daily. So they didn't buy Joe Rogan. They are acquiring him for a multi-year exclusive license. So they're paying him some amount of money. We don't know how much yet. We're assuming it's a lot, a lot, a lot. And the really big news here is not just that they've gone in hired slash licensed Joe Rogan, but in a switch from what they've done in the past, Spotify is going to make Joe Rogan exclusive to Spotify. They've done it a couple times with smaller podcasters, but they're taking the biggest

star in podcasting, paying him a ton of money and saying, if you want to hear him, Joe Rogan fans all over the world, come sometime later this fall, you're going to have to listen to him on Spotify. You don't have to pay to hear him, but you will have to use our app. So that's the news. This is huge. It's huge news, this is kind of like the big boy version of what Luminary was trying to do.

Right. our app. So that's the news. This is huge. It's huge news. This is kind of like the big boy version of what

Luminary was trying to do. Right. So Luminary, which is not working as an attempt to do a subscription

service and they were trying to get named talent like a Bill Simmons to make them stuff. And we don't

need to pour more dirt on them. They're still alive, but we don't need to kick them anymore.

What I thought about when I heard this news was, oh, this is Howard Stern and Sirius.

Do you remember that?

You're probably like in Christmas.

Yeah, he was the biggest name in radio.

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