[imagesource:spotify]

So Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s highly-publicised Spotify deal failed to rake in the expected sum of cash, and now a bunch of people are about to lose their jobs.

The Swedish streaming giant reportedly paid the Duchess of Sussex over $18 million for her Archetypes podcast which launched in August last year. In 2021, it was reported that Meghan and Harry received a cool $25 million from Spotify for signing the proposed lucrative audio deal.

The big fork out has not really been justified though, as the podcast did not increase listenership quite as expected. Archetypes struggled to remain at the top since its debut, with the podcast sliding down to number 22 in the charts by November already.

Now the company is thinking about letting a significant number of staffers go due to the error in judgment, the New York Post reported.

Image: Spotify

It is possible that 200 people will lose their jobs:

In a blog post on the streaming platform, Spotify’s head of podcast business Sahar Elhabashi wrote, “We are expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters from across the globe with a tailored approach optimized for each show and creator.”

“This fundamental pivot from a more uniform proposition will allow us to support the creator community better,” Elhabashi continued.

“However, doing so requires adapting … As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to make a strategic realignment of our group and reduce our global podcast vertical and other functions by approximately 200 people, or 2% of Spotify’s workforce.”

The company has already been through a round of redundancies this year, following its huge investment into the podcast industry. In January, Spotify laid off some 6% of its 6 600-strong workforce.

Letting go of 2% of its entire workforce now is another blow, especially considering how recently the investment took place.

Despite pumping billions of dollars into having Markle on its platform, these redundancy cuts point to how the company is failing to see the results it had hoped for in the podcast arena overall.

Despite Joe Rogan’s podcast suffering a series of controversies ranging from COVID-19 vaccine misinformation to being accused of using racial slurs and making antisemitic comments, his podcast remains at the top.

Meghan’s podcast seems to have fallen completely off the podcast charts.

[source:nypost]