Spotify’s deal with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle failed because ‘consumers’ weren’t ‘happy’: CEO

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s failed partnership with Spotify continues to make headlines.

Daniel Ek, the chief executive of Spotify, hinted that the highly publicized deal between the royals and the major streaming giant did not succeed because consumers were not impressed.

The Duchess and Prince’s Harry’s company Archewell Audio produced a mere 12 podcasts during a two-and-a-half year span, after signing with Spotify in December 2020.

During a recent interview with the BBC, host and technology writer Zoe Kleinman asked the CEO if he believed the partnership, which ended on June 15, 2023, was worth the $20M price tag.

“You had some pretty big names,” she said. “You had the Obamas. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Was that worth the £18m?”

In response Ek explained that the streaming platform aims to be open to giving new creators an opportunity to reach their audience. “We thought new innovation was needed to happen here,” he explained. “We thought we can come in and offer a great experience that both makes consumers very happy and allows new creators new avenues.”

Despite their best intentions Ek admitted that Spotify had made some mistakes in the past. “And the truth of the matter is some of it has worked, some of it hasn’t,” he explained. “We’re learning from those and we are moving on and we wish all of the ones we didn’t renew with the best of success they can have going forward.”

Ek is not the first Spotify exec to allude to having an issue with the content provided by Markle and Prince Harry. In June 2023 during an episode of “The Bills Simmons Podcast,”  the titular host called the couple of being modern-day swindlers.

“‘The Fucking Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them,” said Simmons, the Ringer founder and head of podcast innovation and monetization at Spotify. “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.”

With a mission “investigate the labels that try to hold women back” and “uncover the origin of these stereotypes,” Markle launched her first episode of “Archetypes” in August 2022 with her close friend, tenis phenom Serena Williams as the guest.

“I don’t remember ever personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ambitious until I started dating my now husband,” Markle told Williams. “And um, apparently ambition is, uh… a terrible, terrible thing, for a woman that is – according to some. So, since I’ve felt the negativity behind it, it’s really hard to un-feel it. I can’t unsee it, either, in the millions of girls and women who make themselves smaller – so much smaller – on a regular basis.”

Two days after it dropped, “Archetypes” was the number one podcast in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada on Spotify’s international charts.