This is one of the most sought-after contracts in the world of podcasts... Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle do not intend to renew the exclusivity that has bound them since 2019 with the Spotify platform for broadcasting their podcasts.
Their production house, Higher Ground, is in talks with other parties, according to Bloomberg, which reports advanced discussions with Audible, an Amazon subsidiary, and iHeartMedia.
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Such a contract is worth tens of millions of dollars.
Does the former presidential couple want to free themselves from an exclusivity imposed by Spotify to distribute their productions more widely or can the Swedish company not meet the requirements?
The underside of the transfer window is not yet clear.
Hard blow
For Spotify, which has made podcasts a major driver of growth since 2019, it's another blow.
"The Michelle Obama Podcast", "Renegades: Born in the USA", a conversation between Barack Obama and singer Bruce Springsteen, are among the original "premium" content that the Swedish platform could offer, in a sharply competitive universe where the fight for the rights and the creators of first order becomes the nerve of the war.
At the start of the year, Spotify had suffered a violent controversy after the slippages of its star podcaster Joe Rogan, who had opened his program to anti-vaccine figures.
A case that has tarnished his image with several artists