Spotify pulled even more episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast from its catalog on Saturday after the comedian’s latest round of apologies. The streamer already added COVID-19 information warnings to the 54-year-old comedian’s show and removed episodes where he used racist slurs. According to a report by Forbes, a total of 113 episodes have now been removed, and Spotify has not commented on why.
Spotify removed 70 episodes of Rogan’s podcast earlier this week when a viral video online revealed that he had used the “N-word” at least that many times over the years. Forbes sourced its updated figure of 113 removals from a site called JRE Missing. Reporters noted that all but one of the removed episodes were recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic. The single episode from more recent times included some dubious claims about the virus and may have been removed for that reason.
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For context, Rogan has been recording his podcast since late 2009 – often multiple episodes per week with episodes lasting as long as five hours at a time. There are 1,770 episodes of the podcast in total, so Spotify has not even removed 10 percent of them from its catalog.
It’s not much of a surprise that Rogan is facing criticism for using racist slurs and sharing his platform with avowed racists. However, the issue is complicated by his relatively recent business relationship with Spotify. The streamer paid Rogan an estimated $100 million to be the exclusive home for his podcast, and now critics are holding the company responsible for Rogan’s rhetoric and its impact on real-life listeners.
Another wrinkle in this debate comes from musicians, whose work makes up the bulk of Spotify’s business. As many artists have pointed out, it would be nearly impossible for them to make $100 million from Spotify payouts under the company’s current terms – even massive acts like Neil Young. This leaves them with little incentive to allow their music to stay on Spotify when they disagree with Rogan so fiercely.
Rogan posted an apology video on Saturday, addressing the compilation of racial slurs directly. However, he also defended himself by saying the clips were taken out of context. The fresh round of controversy also led actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to reverse course from defending Rogan to condemning him on social media.
So far, Spotify and Rogan have not commented publicly on the latest round of removals. There have been no hints that the podcast will not move forward as planned in the immediate future.
