At the end of 2020, Spotify made a big splash in the podcasting world.

Well, you can add Prince Harry and Megan Markle to your list of high-profile podcasters,

Spotify announced an exclusive deal with the couple saying,

Megan Markle and Prince Harry signed a roughly $20 million deal with Spotify to make several

podcasts together. In August of last year, the first episode in a new series

dropped. Markle was the host, and she had a lineup of A-listers, like Mariah Carey,

Serena Williams, and Paris Hilton, to talk about female stereotypes.

Hi, I'm Megan, and this is Archetypes. My podcast about the labels and tropes that

try to hold women back. Archetypes vaulted to the top of Spotify's charts. This

bet was part of a bigger strategy at Spotify, to go beyond music into podcasting. But less

than a year after Archetypes debuted, it was canceled. The partnership between Spotify

and the couple was over. And the crumbling of that deal is just one of several cracks

in Spotify's podcast ambitions. How much money has Spotify invested in podcasting?

A billion dollars at this point is how much Spotify has bet on this business.

And how much money is Spotify making from that billion dollar bet? Spotify is not making

money from podcasts at this point.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Limebaugh.

It's Thursday, September 7th.

Coming up on the show, why Spotify's billion dollar podcasting gamble hasn't paid off yet.

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