Spotify is taking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s €18million podcast deal “into its own hands” after the couple failed to produce any content over the last year, a source disclosed.
The company is hiring a number of in-house producers to help deliver on the deal after waiting more than a year for material from Harry and Meghan. It is recruiting new staff to work with Harry and Meghan’s ‘Archewell Audio’ in Los Angeles for podcasts that feature “the voices of high-profile women”.
An announcement for a senior producer role at Gimlet Projects, Spotify’s in-house production arm, states: “We’re currently assembling a show team that will build and launch a new original show with Archewell featuring the voices of high-profile women. The ideal candidate has experience working with high-profile talent, and an interest in the intersection of social activism and popular culture”.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s only effort so far for Spotify has been a 35-minute ‘holiday special’ in December 2020. It featured their friends, James Corden and Elton John.
The couple’s lack of material comes despite the Sussexes employing podcast producer, Rebecca Sanaes, as their Head of Audio at Archewell last year.
A source disclosed to local media that “Spotify has been waiting a long time for some content from Harry and Meghan and now it appears they have finally taken matters into their own hands. Hiring a raft of in-house talent on Spotify’s side will ensure they finally squeeze something out of them as they bid to honor their contract”.
This comes after a media lawyer suggested Harry and Meghan may not receive the full €18million from their contract with the streaming service.
Speaking in an earlier interview, media lawyer, Ian Penman, who specializes in music streaming contracts, speculated that the venture is likely to have been less popular than Spotify and the royal couple expected.
“It would not be an unfair assumption that perhaps their popularity was not as great as maybe they or indeed Spotify initially felt. I think you could draw a conclusion that, if [Spotify] haven’t exercised the option on the next episode of the podcast, then maybe they did not have the popularity that either Meghan and Harry expected or indeed Spotify anticipated”.
Ian Penman
Penman explained Spotify is unlikely to have lost out because they are unlikely to have paid the full €18million upfront and are instead likely to have paid the Sussexes a small advance, retaining the right to back out of the contract if the first episode was not popular.
“It probably means that they have signed their first product, in this case, a podcast – they then have many, many options for further products. All those options are in Spotify’s favor. Make no mistake, they’re not in Meghan and Harry’s favor”.
Ian Penman
After realizing that the deal so far had cost them €500,000 a minute, Spotify has reportedly been left “mystified” as to why the couple has not produced any content, according to reports.
Meanwhile, Angela Levin, who has written a biography about the Prince said: “Harry and Meghan want to do too many things at the same time”.
Angela Levin’s remark is not surprising as just yesterday, January 24, 2022, it was reported that the Duke and Duchess registered two more entertainment companies to their growing empire.
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