Michelle Obama signs a podcast deal with Spotify

On Thursday, Spotify announced that Michelle Obama is the most recent highest-profile to host an exclusive Spotify podcast titled "The Michelle Obama's Podcast. The podcast is scheduled to launch on the 29th of this month and is the first production after the last year deal between Higher ground production company owned by the Obama family and Spotify. After the podcast launch, subsequent episodes would be released every week for nine weeks.

After leaving the White House, Michelle Obama has kept herself busy with lots of businesses and deals. In 2018, she wrote her first book "Becoming" which sold more than 2 million copies in the first week. According to the book publisher, Penguin Random House, the book became the “most successful memoir in history,” selling more than 11 million copies worldwide.

In 2019, Higher Ground production partnered with Netflix and released its first movie "American Factory." The movie later won the Academy Award for “best documentary feature.” 

In 2020, Netflix released “Becoming,” a documentary revolving around the story in Obama’s book.

 Michelle Obama's Podcast

Spotify announced that Michelle Obama's podcast would revolve around pertinent topics like relationships, the ongoing pandemic, racial issues, and many more.

Obama said

“My hope is that this series can be a place to explore meaningful topics together and sort through so many of the questions we’re all trying to answer in our own lives,” Obama said. “Perhaps most of all, I hope this podcast will help listeners open up new conversations — and hard conversations — with the people who matter most to them. That’s how we can build more understanding and empathy for one another.”

The program will feature guest speakers like Obama's mother and brother, Marian and Craig Robinson, top Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett,  late-night host Conan O’Brien; journalist Michele Norris; and Dr. Sharon Malone, who is married to former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder.

It is scheduled to run in both free and premium versions and would include feature ads from Dawn, Tides, and Salesforce.

About Spotify

For some years now, the music streaming service, Spotify has focused on strengthening its podcast through various acquisitions and deals. Part of the company's acquisition includes Anchor, Gimlet Media, and Parcast.

In May, the company signed a licensing deal with the comedian Joe Rogan. The deal grants Shopify access to Rogan's popular podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience." In June, Spotify announced its partnership with DC and Warner Bros. This was followed by a podcast deal with Kim Kardashian. Later, the company bought Bill Simmons’ sports and culture site The Ringer.

During the recent second-quarter report submitted by the company, CEO Daniel Ek said the consumption of podcasts has grown by triple-digit when compared to its last year quarter. He added that:

"Both new and reactivated [monthly active users] grew substantially even during lockdown periods in major markets," he said. "And we believe this is a testament to how engaging our platform and ecosystem are to our users. And last year, as you all know, we outlined a vision to be the world's largest audio platform, and we've made significant progress. We now have more than 1 million podcasts on the platform, and we're the No. 1 audio service for podcasts in dozens of countries around the world and quickly gaining ground where we're not."

Spotify is a public traded company, the company's stock symbol is SPOT, and it's currently trading at $281 per share.