Music Licensing Fees Drive Spotify to Push Podcasters, Says Oxenford

Spotify’s loyalty to controversial podcaster Joe Rogan is partially driven by music rights fees, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Wednesday. “The more that music costs, the more incentive there is for a music service to find alternative audio programming to provide to its listeners,” Oxenford wrote. “So, as long as music royalties remain high, expect talk programming to grow.” This calculation is also the reasoning behind broadcasters such as iHeart expanding their podcast offerings, he said. When Spotify users are listening to podcasts, they aren’t also listening to playlists of streaming music, so talk programming both costs less and reduces song royalty payments, Oxenford said.