Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are consciously uncoupling (from Spotify)
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have "mutually agreed to part ways" with Spotify after a $20 million deal
Aux News Meghan Markle
It’s the end of the road for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle…’s Spotify deal. This match made in heaven, or somewhere, came into being in December 2020 and spawned Markle’s successful podcast series Archetypes. Yet despite that show hitting the top of Spotify’s podcast charts, the ex-royal couple and the streamer have decided to call it quits.
“Spotify and Archewell Audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series we made together,” the two parties said in a joint statement (via CNN).
As for why the reported $20 million deal was discontinued, it’s a bit of a he-said-she-said behind the scenes. According to one source for Variety, Harry and Markle wanted to open up the relationship. That is to say, the duo “have wanted to move away from exclusive Spotify distribution to find a new home for their audio projects.” (A similar reasoning was given for why Barack and Michelle Obama ended their Spotify exclusive deal.)
Archetypes in particular may live on in another form elsewhere. The show was designed to “investigate, dissect and subvert the labels that try to hold women back” and featured conversations between Markle and celebrities such as Serena Williams, Mariah Carey, Mindy Kaling, Paris Hilton, and Trevor Noah. “The team behind Archetypes remain proud of the podcast they created at Spotify,” a spokesperson for Archewell Productions said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “Meghan is continuing to develop more content for the Archetypes audience on another platform.”
However, it’s a slightly different story on the Spotify side of the equation. Another Variety insider says, “Spotify expected more content from Archewell Audio,” while sources for the WSJ claim that “The couple hasn’t met the productivity benchmarks required to receive the full payout from the deal.” The fact is, Archetypes is the only series Archewell put out in the last three years, plus one measly holiday special.
The deal flaming out with a whimper will surely inspire a lot of gleeful schadenfreude with a certain segment of Internet denizens. But Harry and Meghan are far from the only celebrities to waste a lot of a streaming service’s time and money. Expensive first-look deals with celebrity creators that ultimately bear little fruit are actually all the rage right now: just look at Phoebe Waller-Bridge at Prime Video or J.J. Abrams at WarnerMedia. It’s all a part of doing business these days, even if doing business that way seems extremely silly from the outside! Best of luck to Meghan and Harry getting launching their podcasts elsewhere.
28 Comments
For $20 million can you blame them for wanting exclusivity?
Second time I’ve gotten to do this today!
Why should anyone care about these nitwits?
“The deal flaming out with a whimper…”This is like saying they went out with a silent bang.
“Almost…almost…almost…there we are! Good show!”
Did you hear that? I didn’t.
An unbelievable pair of nitwits that should retire from public life.
Away! Ye wits of nit!
They kinda did? Like un-royaling themselves?
I mean… when they were cutting a check for $20 mil, what did they think they were going to get? A new comedy improv show or another true crime podcast? Maybe Meghan would do some curated playlist DJ-ing gigs on the weekend?As a “brand”, Harry and Meghan’s bread-and-butter seems to just be soft advocate stuff… basically getting paid to ‘bring attention’ or ‘start a discussion’ to important things. I don’t think they are capable of anything else, and I don’t understand how Spotify thought this would be a fruitful partnership at all. Same goes for the Obama deal: great President, but doesn’t strike me as a goldmine of creative programming ideas. How much is the name truly worth?
Yeah, this is how I felt. I don’t have any particular animus toward these two but I also have no idea what the creative vision would be in paying them to come up with content.
I’ve just never heard them say anything outside their own experiences that was especially insightful. Soft activism is the right way to describe it. But their involvement is frankly no longer much of a positive. The idea of listening to these two interview someone is straight-up unappealing.The Obamas as good as givers of interviews and yeah, fair to say they’ve accomplished some things. No idea how they’ve been on the other side of the table though.
I agree. I thought Spotify was pretty successful- this smacks of some sort of desperation.
Obama has inspired two well reviewed movies “Southside with You” (about his romance in law school with Michelle, leading to their marriage) and “Barry” (about his life in high school before he became self-confident enough to go by Barack). The latter was later expanded into a TV show, but it took great liberties with the story (and had the lead played by Bill Hader somewhat oddly).
It was heavily covered in Jet Magazine, but that was when the magazine was about jet ownership.
“content creation” ain’t easy.
we’re in hell not heaven
Bye, Felicia.
Who listens to these celebrity podcasts? Like I get it if the person is known for being entertaining like Conan O’Brien but why would I listen to Prince Harry or Barrack Obama when I can listen to two guys in Tennessee make fun of bad Kickstarters.
I have no earthly idea, and it seems like everyone fucking has one. I feel like half the sources from an AV Club article these days come from an actor sharing an experience on their own podcast (or the podcast of a fellow actor). That guy from ‘You’ talking about not wanting to do sex scenes anymore was all on his podcast, apparently. You hear that and go “…Him?” (speaking AD: Mae Whitman also has a podcast that is always being advertised to me where she and friends talk football and other things).
Mae Whitman has a podcast? Her? Is she funny or something?
That seems especially true because neither Prince Harry nor Barack Obama can really be candid about what they truly think — Harry because it might damage a carefully-cultivated brand, Obama because he’s still an important Democratic figure whose words could impact elections. But getting real, truthful insight is the only thing these podcasts could possibly provide of value.
I am on Spotify all day (probably at least 8 hours a day on average) and it’s my primary podcast app (I am subscribed to over 100 and probably listen to 20 in any given week) and I’ve never heard anything about Archetypes until now. I consciously avoid news about these people but between Spotify’s interface, recommendations, and in-pod ads, that’s telling of Spotify’s podcast monetization strategy (or at least execution).
Sounds like Spotify did you a solid.
“Best of luck to Meghan and Harry getting launching their podcasts elsewhere.”- Mary, please stop telling me how to think.
It’s part of the overall mess that was Spotify Podcasts. In an attempt to get market share, they dumped a whole ton of money into overpriced deals to get celebrity podcasts and so forth. It didn’t pan out for them, in part because they could never really force exclusivity on listening just through Spotify, and because there’s just not that much money in podcasts. Podcasts can have thriving, successful businesses and podcasters, but it doesn’t have the kind of market that could sustain a tech giant – never mind some company try to do fast VC-scale-up growth for a high stock valuation.
Yet despite that show hitting the top of Spotify’s podcast chartsI’ve read that because of how podcasts are rated, some get a huge bump for the first couple weeks, so it’s hard to know how big it was.I listened to a couple of episodes. It was OK. She kind of over emotes, which gets annoying, but a lot of people do that.I was struck by how long the credits lasted, so it must’ve been expensive. I don’t listen to enough podcasts to know how unusual that is.
Byron Denniston will be devastated when he gets wind of this.