Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s lucrative Spotify contract reportedly cancelled after 912 days
There’s more bad news for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, with reports suggesting one of their most lucrative contracts has been canned.
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Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex: Saint or sinner? Grievously wronged son or petulant man-child having a prolonged tanty? Palace whistleblower or modern-day turncoat?
To write about the 38-year-old today is to constantly wrestle with the contradictions and the complexities of a man who did the unthinkable, walking away from the royal family and straight into the waiting arms of corporate America.
Except that, so far, the Megxit fairytale has not resulted in anything like an out and out happily-ever-after.
For years now, the duke and duchess have been testing the world’s patience with their veritable Niagara Falls of hurts.
Today, the question that is harder and harder to ignore is, has it paid off for them – or their paymasters?
The auguries are not good.
On Wednesday, veteran royal biographer Tom Bower appeared on UK TV and alleged that “Spotify have cancelled their contract”.
Now, let’s be clear here – this has not been confirmed, nor has this purported ‘cancelling’ been reported by, say, the Times or the Telegraph.
But, if Spotify was looking to rejig their arrangement with the Sussexes, it would come as about as much of a surprise as Fergie getting into the weight-loss tea game.
Let’s do some maths, shall we?
At the time of writing, it has been 912 days since it was announced on December 15, 2020 that the Sussexes had signed on with the audio platform, with their deal reportedly coming in at $US25 million ($36.7 million).
That works out, carry the one, divide by pi, at this being worth $40,326 per day, to date.
How much bang has the multibillion-dollar company gotten, thus far, for their many, many bucks? Think less New Year’s Eve fireworks-worthy explosiveness and more hastily-lit sparkler. A bit of dazzle and fizz that is over in no time.
Back in December 2020, two weeks after Harry and Meghan announced their Spotify marriage, the couple put out a roughly half-hour episode featuring a few starry chums offering their profound thoughts on the first year of the pandemic.
It was predictable and anaemic and seemed exactly what I figured Harry and Meghan would start pumping out: podcasts where they nattered to their A-list mates, in between serving up some self help-lite pap.
Except that then came … nothing … and more nothing … and a bit more nothing.
It took a full 20 months for the Sussexes’ first Spotify project to be released in the form of Meghan’s podcast Archetypes, which was to feminist discourse what Die Hard is to policing. (To be fair, it was not a bad idea, but the execution saw overly-long episodes, a concept stretched far too thin and a host who was not exactly a natural interviewer).
Listeners were fascinated with Archetypes until they were not, with the podcast debuting at number one before, in the weeks that followed, new episodes failed to make much of a mark in the listening charts.
In the nine months since then, while there have been rumours that a second season would be given the green light, nothing has been announced.
But at least Meghan had an idea and then followed it up with some talking into a microphone. Since that Harry and Meghan two-hander in late 2020, the duke has not created, released or recorded a single, solitary thing for the company. (He did pop up in Meghan’s debut episode to compliment Serena Williams on her hair, saying “that’s a great vibe”).
Or to put it another way, the last time that he properly graced the Spotify airwaves, the duke’s grandparents, Her late Majesty and Prince Philip, were both alive and hosting Christmas at their Sandringham Estate.
Such an amazing return on investment for Spotify so far …
As of now, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not have any confirmed or new series in the works for the company, despite their deal being worth about the price of a Kia Carnival per day.
Nor are things that much better on the Netflix side of the equation for Harry and Meghan, where their Archewell Productions has only one project on the go, the duke’s doco about the Invictus Games. No air date has yet been set.
It took Tolstoy six years to write War and Peace – is Harry working to a similarly indulgent time frame?
While earlier this year it was reported that they were looking to move into scripted content such as rom-coms, nothing has been announced.
Meanwhile, in the two and a half years-plus since the Sussexes signed on with Netflix and Spotify, the streaming landscape has been hit by an economic earthquake.
These two companies alone have lost more than $50 billion combined in market value and there have been mass lay-offs across the sector.
In January, the Spotify executive who signed the royal renegade couple left the business.
“The dumb money era is over,” a podcast industry strategist told the New York Times earlier this year.
Being a global name would not seem to be enough to keep Spotify on side, with the company “declining to renew” their deal with Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company last year.
Given the way the economic wind is blowing, you would have to think that at some stage, some polite pressure would have to be applied in the direction of Archewell HQ to get the duke and duchess to actually, you know, make something.
It would be interesting to know if the same situation might also hold when it comes to Harry and his publisher Penguin Random House.
While they are probably still gleefully counting the Guinness World Record-breaking sales of his memoir Spare, could they be looking to get their hands on another book from Aitch?
Writing in the Daily Mail, biographer Christopher Wilson reported that “Harry’s deal with Penguin, worth upwards of £22 million ($40.9 million), requires him to produce at least one more book, and soon”.
Just to really dial up the strain, Harry is also the Chief Impact Officer of a coaching platform called BetterUp, a job that seems to require him to appear in ads and undertake speaking gigs. Look, it’s hardly working down a salt mine, but taken all together, the demands on the former army captain really start to mount up.
All of this is before we have factored in the time for him to do a lick of humanitarian work via the Sussexes’ Archewell Foundation. Pity his poor PA trying to schedule all of this, as well as daily shiatsu and crystal therapy sessions.
Whatever is a duke, with two small children and a clutch of British court cases on the go, to do?
This year, he does not even have the outlet of polo, with his Los Padres team not playing in his local Santa Barbara club cup.
Here’s my idea – Spotify should put Harry to work recording audio books.
He did the 15-hour version for Spare, so why not have him do King Charles’ 2010 mind-numbing Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, then Fergie’s Mills & Boon number, Her Heart For A Compass, before moving onto her Budgie back catalogue?
Get him some lemon barley and get the man reading.
Streaming service + duke + raunchy romance novel? You could take that to the bank any day.
Daniela Elser is writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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