Spotify made headlines last year when it announced a special podcast deal with Obama’s production studio Hire Ground. Today, the company made a face surprise. The company says it will release the first season Michelle Obama Podcast Tomorrow, on the “number” of other podcast listening platforms starting September 30 – two weeks after the show’s season 1 ended.
The company did not elaborate on what platforms the show will have, but it is in conversation with many people, including Stitcher, Google, Apple Paul and iHeart. A spokesman for Spotify says that in the future, if the show is renewed, it will “exclusively enter” Spotify, but he did not say whether the show will be meticulously or exclusively for service.
Obama’s show expansion could help Spotify find more audiences while driving listeners back to the platform. This strategy has been tested with other shows, including this one Dope Labs, Hitman’s son, And In charge with DVF, Although it’s not clear if those shows are getting an audience on Spotify. (Advertisements for some of the previous special shows promote Spotify, as well as on other platforms.) It is also unclear whether there will always be an extended release in the High Ground Deal – a Spotify spokesman will not comment.
This news is like a 180 degree flip in the trend for audio dio company. Still, as he has strategized with other shows, Obama has some big stars – and perhaps the biggest investments – that Spotify has decided to make available outside of its platform. The company drew attention around its podcast ambitions because of its Clash of Clans and the launch of big-name exclusive shows like Kim Kardashian West. In fact, Spotify’s press release about the high ground deal stated that the partnership would “produce exclusive podcasts for the platform”, so it’s fantastic to see SpTiff make all these shows widely available after all the hype.
At the same time, some exclusive hosts have talked about unfair deals in recent months. One of the original exclusive Spotify hosts, Joe Bude, denounced the platform last month, saying he plans to leave after his contract expires on September 23. An episode has not been published on its feed since September 19. No hosts Node, The original Gimelet media show, also said in June that they wanted to own their podcast because Spotify, which acquired Gimelet, now owns the show’s IP.
It doesn’t look like the Obama show’s huge release has come out with similar issues with Spotify, but nonetheless, it looks like it’s coming out of the left field.
Updated 9/29, 5:41 pm ET: Updated to show that any future season of Michelle Obama podcast will be exclusively on Spotify.
