Spotify shares may continue to be affected when the market opens Monday after singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell announced Friday she would remove her music from the platform, followed by Nils Lofgren on Saturday.
The company paid more than $100 million back in 2020 to license Rogan’s content, which has since become the most-streamed podcast on Spotify.Shares of Spotify were $172.98 at market close Friday, down 12% from $195.53 at the close of trading last week before the controversy began, after reaching a 19-month low on Thursday amid trending social media campaigns to cancel subscriptions to the streaming platform.Įstimates of the market value lost by Spotify ranged from $2 billion reported by Variety and $4 billion reported by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook. Spotify’s decision to side with Rogan speaks to where their business focus is directed as they pursue a shift to podcasting, which helped boost the platform’s subscriber base by 24% in 2020.
“I hope this does send a chilling effect out through the marketplace so they stop viewing this art as just any other kind of commodity.” Decision points to where Spotify’s loyalties lie
Howard says he hopes this will serve as a wakeup call for investment firms that have been aggressively pursuing artists’ catalogs in recent years, with musicians from Bruce Springsteen to Stevie Nicks selling the rights to their music. Now any streaming royalties that Young and Hipgnosis were collecting from the world’s most popular streaming service will be gone. “They were betting on recovering their massive investment through the continuing growth of streaming,” Howard says. As for Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the Blackstone-owned firm that bought a 50% stake in Young’s songwriting catalog for an estimated $150 million last year, they’ll likely see their investment in the artist’s music depreciate as well.
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