Joe Rogan Is Wildly Influential

Joe Rogan's scope of influence on Spotify has been laid bare, with his podcast attracting almost three times the amount of subscribers than his nearest competitor.

It had long been documented that The Joe Rogan Experience was the most listened-to podcast in the world through Spotify, where it arrived in 2020, although specific subscriber numbers were never shared.

In February 2024, Rogan inked a new multiyear deal—estimated to be worth up to $250 million—with Spotify that saw the streamer drop the exclusive part of their contract, allowing his show to air elsewhere.

Bloomberg has now reported that Rogan's Spotify subscriber count sits at 14.5 million, as of March 21. It is followed by TED Talks Daily with 5 million and Call Her Daddy, whose count stands at 3.7 million. New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce sits in 13th place with a count of 938,000, while The Ben Shapiro Show, in 15th place, has 847,000.

The numbers were gleaned by Bloomberg through a new feature that Spotify has been quietly testing. Those with access to the feature on Spotify's mobile app will see a small rectangle on the left side of shows' landing pages. When tapped, the square shares swipeable previews of episodes, with follower numbers displayed.

While the subscriber count to Rogan's podcast is, indeed, impressive, it doesn't necessarily reflect the numbers that listen to the show, which releases lengthy new episodes multiple times each week.

"This number represents the number of users who have decided to 'follow' a show on Spotify—it doesn't represent a show's total audience or the performance of an episode," Spotify said in a statement. "The early feedback from both creators and users has been encouraging. We have no further details to share at this time."

For comparison of sheer numbers, Rogan's show has 16.4 million subscribers on YouTube, while his personal Instagram account currently has a follower count of 18.9 million. On X, formerly Twitter, he has 12.3 million followers.

Social media reach counts for a lot of the traffic that podcasts attract that wouldn't be measured by Spotify subscribers. A number of podcasts are also shared to more platforms than just Spotify alone, boosting the figures they attract.

X account @KanekoaTheGreat posted the results of Bloomberg's probe, alongside the caption: "NEW: Spotify just disclosed the follower counts for podcasts, revealing that Joe Rogan has a staggering 14.5 million followers.

"In contrast, CNN averaged 582k primetime viewers in 2023. CNN brands @joerogan as 'fringe' and 'controversial,' but his audience is actually more than ten times larger than CNN's. So, who's really fringe and controversial?"

Elon Musk, who acquired X in 2022, responded: "CNN is a fringe legacy media company."

Rogan, who recently spoke on his podcast about his reluctant use of social media, has not publicly commented on Bloomberg's findings. Newsweek has contacted a representative of Rogan via email for comment.

While Rogan is Spotify's most popular podcaster, he has faced resistance and boycott calls over the years. In January 2022, Neil Young announced that he would have his music pulled from Spotify if the company did not remove Rogan's podcast. At the time, Young was among a number of artists who accused Rogan of circulating COVID-19 misinformation on his popular show.

Rogan's repeated use of the podcast to disseminate certain COVID-19 viewpoints led a group of 270 scientists and healthcare professionals to publish a letter in January 2022 calling on Spotify to take action against the spread of misinformation on its platform.

While Spotify responded to the medical professionals' request, saying it would publish its platform policy regarding the promotion of medical information and "add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19," it stopped short of meeting Young's demand to remove the JRE.

Young subsequently departed Spotify after the platform stuck with Rogan. Other artists, including Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren, also removed their music from the platform at the time.

Young this month announced that he had made a return to Spotify, citing the expansion of Rogan's show onto other streaming platforms as his reason.

"I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all," veteran musician Young explained in a statement posted to his website. "So I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it."

During an installment of his show last week, Rogan paused his conversation with writer and political commentator James Lindsay to acknowledge Young's return.

"By the way, Neil Young came back to Spotify. Congratulations, Neil," Rogan quipped. "And his excuse was he said that because all of the platforms are now allowing my disinformation, he's just going back on Spotify too."

"Great to know you've got some ethics," Rogan added with a laugh, before guest Lindsay said: "Well, everybody's doing it these days—disinformation."