The left was furious with podcaster Joe Rogan for not toeing the line and launched a protest to try to get Spotify to cancel Rogan. But Rogan gets ratings and drives protests and as everyone knows now when you go woke you go broke.
When that didn’t work some big stars pulled their music from the service while some podcasters with no followings like Trump’s niece Mary Trump joined in the hysteria and pulled their content.
But a funny thing happened when Spotify announced its first quarter earnings. The woke mob protest backfired and Spotify gained paying subscribers rather than lose any and saw revenue soar.
According to CNN, “Spotify (SPOT) saw its paid memberships increase, and the platform now has 182 million premium subscribers — up from 180 million in the previous quarter and 15% higher year over year, the company said in its first quarter earnings report Wednesday. Total revenue was up 24% over last year.
Those numbers are roughly in line with what the company said it was expecting in terms of growth. In fact, Spotify noted that it would have done even better had it not pulled out of Russia in April following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Excluding the impact of our exit from Russia, subscriber growth exceeded expectations,” the company said.
On a recent show, Rogan addressed the woke mob backfiring.
Douglas Murray said to Rogan: “You have been put through the wringer since we last met. They did a number on you. Wow.”
Rogan said, “It’s interesting, my subscriptions went up massively, that’s what’s crazy. During the height of it all, I gained 2 million subscribers.”
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said during the company is “trying to balance creative expression with the safety of our users.
“Of course, this is a very complicated issue.
“But I’m really proud of the steps that we took following the concerns raised by the medical and scientific communities.”
Joe Rogan hails Elon Musk as ‘a movie star type of superhero’ after Twitter takeover https://t.co/WgOeBiBxCu pic.twitter.com/hKvTwMPQET
— New York Post (@nypost) April 28, 2022
Spotify subscriber numbers strong despite controversy over Joe Rogan – https://t.co/k6hs82VEGG
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) April 28, 2022