The Sussexes' Spotify Termination Signals Longterm Crisis for the Couple
Spotify has terminated its deal with Harry and Meghan. What about Netflix? What does this mean for the couple's longterm financial stability?
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Meghan’s Archtypes podcast has been axed and the Sussexes’ deal with Spotify has terminated. According to reports, the couple will not receive the full $20 million of their original deal. The Wall Street Journal reported, “[t]he couple hasn’t met the productivity benchmarks required to receive the full payout from the deal, people familiar with the matter said.”
Meghan’s podcast Archtypes is the only completed show the partnership produced. You might or might not remember the brief first stab the couple took at a podcast in late 2020. Harry and Meghan introduced various public figures whose stories they wanted to amplify. I have a strong memory of washing the dishes in my apartment at the time while listening to the first episode. It was very dull. I believe it was a teaser episode, but no further content was forthcoming. Reports that Harry would produce content in 2021 went nowhere.
Meghan’s Archetypes podcast—an entirely different project from the teaser— finally premiered in 2022, almost two years after the initial teaser episode. It immediately shot to the top of the charts, dethroning Joe Rogan as the number one podcast on Spotify. At the time, I predicted that the ratings would be short lived, and indeed, Rogan was back on top relatively quickly. Some people questioned how Spotify rankings are calculated, speculating Meghan’s podcast got a helpful bump from inside. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t think we have to go that far to explain the initial ratings success and the ensuing failure, though.
There is no doubt that many people tuned in to Meghan’s first episode, both as genuine fans and for the purposes of reporting or analysis. I listened to the first episode and simply could not get through more. I just noticed a royal reporter on Instagram confirming he’d listened to the podcast “for work.” But the initial interest from people across the globe was bound to wane if the product didn’t hold up. Sure enough, the Daily Mail reported the podcast’s waning numbers in November of last year:
Meghan Markle's Archetypes podcast appears to have dropped in popularity with US listeners according to Spotify's charts - with the latest drop outperformed by a collection of lullabies.
The Duchess of Sussex's digital offering - which is now ten full episodes deep into its run - was once ranked as the platform's top show.
But Meghan's latest episode, produced as part of a reported £18million deal between Spotify and she and Harry, was positioned at just 77 in the US charts at 1pm today.
The plain and simple reality is the content was not popular. At the end of the day, content is king. Meghan failed to deliver quality content, and her massive notoriety (I don’t think we want to term this star power) was not enough to sustain the popularity or interest in the show.
As is not unusual with the Sussexes, Meghan and Harry’s account of this Spotify termination is not quite the same as Spotify’s perspective. According to