Spotify Ends Podcast Deal With Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – The Hollywood Reporter

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle no longer have a podcast deal with Spotify.

In a joint statement, representatives for Spotify and Archewell said the two have “mutually agreed to separate” and are “proud.” archetypes The podcast hosted by the Duchess of Sussex served as the first and only series released as part of Archewell’s podcast deal with Spotify.

Archewell reserves the intellectual property rights for models Existing podcasts and episodes of the series will remain on Spotify, according to a Spotify spokesperson, but it’s not immediately clear if Archewell plans to release these episodes widely on all major podcast platforms.

The end of the relationship between Spotify and Archewell was announced late Thursday after Wall Street Journal Firstly mentioned Earlier today, and Hollywood Reporter Confirmed, the audio company did not renew models for a second season.

Before Spotify and Archewell jointly announced the end of their relationship, a representative told WME, which represents Markle and Archewell, Wall Street Journal that Duchess was “continuing to develop more content for models audience on another platform.

models It premiered last August and featured guests like Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, Mindy Kaling, Constance Wu, Paris Hilton, Essa Rae, and Michaela J. Rodriguez during its 12-episode first season. The series also had the highest first-week streams at podcast launch in the US, according to a Spotify Wrapped list last year.

The podcast was released as part of Archewell’s multi-year exclusive deal with Spotify, first announced in late 2020. In the years since, the partnership has resulted in just one season of models and a holiday special released in December 2020, around the time the deal was announced.

The end of the partnership is due in part to Archewell’s reduced content production, since Spotify typically requires multiple series or episodes of a show released on a regular basis for exclusive podcast deals, according to a person familiar with the matter. THR.

Archewell is the latest high-profile podcast launch for Spotify, which ushered in a short-lived era of high-spending podcast deals starting in 2019 as the company sought to expand its podcasting business. But as the market slowed and Spotify faced pressure to turn a profit on its audio business, the company has backed away from its audio spending and has grown wiser with pricey talent deals over the past year.

Other creators and studios whose deals have expired or exited to other companies include Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground, and Bren Brown and Esther Beryl. Jemele Hill’s exclusive deal with Spotify is also expected to expire later this summer.

Earlier this month, Spotify cut about 200 jobs in its podcast division and merged its in-house studios Gimlet and Parcast into a single brand, Spotify Studios.

June 15th at 7:14 p.m.: Updated throughout to reflect the end of Spotify and Archewell’s podcast deal and to include a joint statement from the two companies.