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Home , Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience

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The Experience (JRE) is a exclusive audio and video . Since its creation, JRE has been on a constant rise in viewers and popularity while expanding its range to include a wide array of guests. JRE was founded, is hosted, and produced by Joe Rogan himself and the help of his longtime friends, co-founder and co-producer Brian Redband and

Jamie Vernon. This podcast has been considered one of the most popular in the world since around 2015 receiving millions of views per episode. As it evolved over the years, spanning

1,000 plus episodes and guests, the format, one he personally describes as “listening and learning” has forwarded him to superstardom. Rogan didn’t do almost any of the things that successful podcasters do on his path to success. Even though he has a ton of industry connections, he didn’t join a network. That makes it a lot harder for a small podcast to take off.

Most people who start their own podcast might not have the option of joining a network, but

Rogan likely did. A network provides artists with support and infrastructure needed to grow listenership. In some cases, the network may do some or all of the marketing work, meaning all the artist has to do is create. Not joining a network means that Rogan did a lot of the work himself. He also didn’t listen to experts who say that should be short and sweet. The recommended length is 22 minutes. Rogan’s typically run longer because he wants to get all the material in, no matter how long it takes. Each episode spans anywhere from two to three hours, and Rogan owns an additional channel where shorter clips of the long conversations are uploaded. When Rogan originally launched JRE on Youtube, Christmas Eve of 2009, he wanted to create an environment where Rogan and his friends could address the fans and followers and have fun and open discourse on whatever they may please. With that being said, Joe didn’t pay for any marketing for his podcast in the beginning, or even try to monetize it right away. Instead, he let the show grow organically. He let listeners find him, and they usually like what they find.

Joe has also never asked for reviews for his podcast which is important because he knows a lot of famous people, and a simple shoutout from one of them could have boosted his podcast’s numbers, but it wouldn’t have been organic growth. The show became popular over time and constant incline. Rogan claims to have been influenced and attracted to the idea of the open discussion style podcast from appearing on the comedy radio show. This style of podcasting is unique because it has brought a different dynamic to its mediums. Its success has signified a somewhat profound shift in podcasting and surrounding culture. Joe Rogan has become a figure that is trusted by people on all sides of the social spectrum. With guests that range from voices like and to and even , he sits down and listens to everyone, regardless of whether or not he is familiar with them. Rogan is also very difficult to put into a political box. He has described his views as being mostly liberal, with the exception of his feelings about gun rights. However, I think that it is more complex than that. When he sits down with somebody that doesn’t see the same politically, he tries to find out everything that they agree on. As he focuses on that, we find that he and his guests usually share a lot of ideas in common. It’s not that he is afraid of confrontation. In fact, he welcomes it at times and some of his podcasts take a turn for the uncomfortable side every once and a while for the sake of ideological integrity. It seems to me that he believes that if people tried to understand each other’s views rather than attack them, discussions would become much more effective. That being said, in today's climate, Rogan has curated a new way of viewing for his audience that they can’t access or experience anywhere else. By adapting to the new ways that we consume information Rogan’s been able to capture the audience, captivated by the conversations. Joe is not new to catching others attention either, as he has been a stand up since the late 1980’s, he found success in this field early, performing his first show at just 21 years old and continues on to perform and tour today. He's done stand-up comedy specials for both and

Comedy Central and is a part of The Comedy Club which was started by a group of comics in

LA. Rogan talks about all sorts of things in his comedy routines, drugs, life, sex, mysteries of space, and the world. I think his comedic background is a very important detail in analysis of

JRE because Rogan’s background plays very heavily into his discourse throughout the podcasts.

The ways his comedy plays a role in the way Joe receives and interprets the world in his experience is a theme worth digging deeper into during the analysis. Rogan has also had success as a national television host for the show and a commentator for the Ultimate

Fighting Championships (UFC) since the late 90’s, early 2000’s. His fighting background runs deep as he pursued a kick boxing career for the early portion of his life. He has said on the podcast that gave him confidence and a different perspective of looking at what he was capable of. Rogan started working at the UFC doing backstage and post-fight interviews for the martial arts promotion company. By 2002, he started doing commentary. UFC Founder,

President, and close friend of Rogan told Rolling Stone Magazine, “He's educated more people in than anybody ever, he’s the best fight announcer who has ever called a fight in the history of fighting.” I think this is a very bold and controversial statement by him but one worth arguing. Rogan has interviewed some of the biggest fighters in the industry over the years and played a major role in the faces and development of the sport today. Some intrinsic details about Joe’s personal life and career like these all have an effect and will be used as stepping stones to convey my ideas and points that I want to highlight on JRE, podcasting, and culture.

With over 1,600 episodes and counting, many with millions of views, the JRE podcast has seemed to be one of the longest running and undoubtedly influential pieces of media in recent years given the success and crowd it has drawn. Rogan’s conversational skills seem like perfected art in the midst of these episodes, as he leaves room for real life and honest stories.

During the podcast Joe asks guests questions they might not want to answer or were even expected to be asked, but he lets people tell their side of the story, where the public may have only gotten one side of a story. Yet, Joe is also known to keep a high integrity in the show and has gotten better at that since its beginnings. He aims to create a platform that is in equal parts educational, entertaining, motivational and amusing. With the JRE Youtube channel having just under 8.5 million subscribers, with videos collectively pulling in more than 2 billion views, the video addition to a podcasting format has helped bring in an entire new audience for JRE and its guests platforms. Rogan videos give the ability to not only hear what is being said, but see it simultaneously. That makes it more enjoyable for some people who like to see the genuinity and feel the energy of their conversations, as well as those who are tuning in because they are fans of guests. Many similar podcasts are only available in audio, this is where I think JRE separates itself from the pack, having the video option for listeners to watch the conversation adds an extra engaging feel to the show. I also believe that being on Youtube brought in viewers who would not typically be a part of the podcasting community, which is heavily dominated by audio mediums like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora. Now as I mentioned before, JRE is now exclusively available on Spotify only, the deal is assumed to be a multiple year licensing agreement valued at 100 million dollars, the deal made Rogan “the highest paid broadcaster” The

Guardian reported. Spotify has more than 700,000 podcasts on its platform and reaches nearly

300 million monthly users, and has been investing heavily in the podcasting format, looking to turn itself into some kind of Netflix for audio. I think Spotify sees a massive business opportunity around podcasts. For one, there is now no single competitor that can take the company on by itself. They have been making big waves in the recent year with podcasting and have taken over the lead from Apple as the most widely used podcasting medium, despite them dominating this space for years.. Apple doesn’t make shows at this time, and they also don't sell any ads, because it would go against their position on privacy anyway. Therefore Spotify has a chance to own this space. Even if Apple wanted to compete, it now would have to find other big podcasts to acquire, and Spotify has a huge head start. And now that JRE has sole access to

Spotify’s massive listening audience, there will most certainly be some worry for other competitors like Youtube, ITunes, and Pandora Radio. In fact, there are many ways Spotify can and will be able to double and triple revenues from the podcasting industry and JRE directly. For example, whenever someone streams a song on Spotify’s platform, Spotify has to pay the record label for that listen. But with podcasts, Spotify doesn’t have to pay a third party. With exclusive deals like with JRE and their own way of uploading content, Spotify will actually make money off each podcast listen because of the ads it puts in them. Even premium users hear ads in

Spotify podcasts, so Spotify double ups with revenue in those cases. As we see from that example podcasts can be lucrative, which is why even though Spotify spent hundreds of millions of dollars on acquiring talent and tools for its platform, it’ll likely recoup that money very quickly. Rogan has previously said that JRE reaches 190 million downloads per month, meaning he would, on the low end, bring in $3 million in ads per month on Spotify. And Rogan’s show will still be free to listen to on Spotify, people don’t need to pay for Spotify Premium to hear or watch it. With their deal JRE and Spotify will sell ads together, so free users will hear Rogan’s ads, plus any additional ads that run in the course of using Spotify’s platform. Spotify ends up not needing everyone to subscribe annually because it makes money off listens either way.

Spotify will also allow Rogan to keep his personal JREClips Youtube page which has a collection of shorter clips from the original full length interviews. Which is generous and strategic of them to do because it will allow for JRE to continue to interact, advertise, and market with their fans on the medium and bring more viewers over to Spotify’s platform. Rogan is doing great at aligning the JRE into a perfect position for the future that Spotify is carving out. To put it in context, JRE’s listening numbers, if put up against a musician, would have to equal 23 billion streams, that’s 23x diamond if you are familiar with musical plague certifications. There are only two musical artists, who are competing on the same mediums as JRE, that have more streams than it, those include Drake with over 30 billion and Ed Sheeren with 27 billion. As the numbers go, JRE will fare very well on Spotify, as of today they are the most searched for show on the platform and have only been exclusively available since January 1, 2021. Spotify is reaping the financial rewards of betting on podcasts, but they have received some backlash for condoning some of the JRE material. But Spotify has opened itself up to controversies and criticism as it invests more in the podcast industry. A recent issue that was brought up to Spotify was JRE hosting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones multiple times on the podcast. And Rogan got scrutiny from Spotify employees and consumers. Even prior to the Spotify deal, Rogan faced controversy for inviting personalities such as Jones, who appeared in episodes in 2017 and 2019, that push conspiracy theories to his massive audience. When Spotify first added JRE to the platform, the episodes that feature Jones and Gavin McInnes were absent. Moving forward Spotify will be at a great advantage, there’s never been a single podcasting medium that sells ads, makes shows, has an already popular podcasters, and offers the tools to make new series. Spotify now has all of that, and the deal with Rogan means it also offers a hit podcast that guarantees millions of people will regularly use its platform for podcast listening. always offers a very open and free environment. Rogan makes his guests feel comfortable, at times by offering them marijuana and alcohol, and he always keeps them talking for hours until they inevitably open up to have real conversations and productive discourse. Discussions are usually laid back at the beginning, especially when it is with a brand new guest, but they always seem to take form. Rogan appeals to listeners who are open enough to hear from a diverse range of ideas and cultures, and smart enough to see that media consolidation is a questionable thing happening today. Yet ignorant, not all, but some followers of Rogan mistake him for someone that has escaped his privilege and can be given a pass in situations that are not necessarily debateable. There is no doubt he has said things that are questionable and at times unacceptable to say especially considering his social stature.

Regardless I aim to layout every aspect of how JRE is, can, and could be viewed as an object in the media. Rogan brings on a widespread number of individuals who are all skilled and creative in some fashion, they often draw in viewers of their own. With over a thousand JRE episodes now, we can identify the guests who can be categorized in a variety of genres, the podcast website actually has their own layout that numbers every episode and guest that they’ve had on and what category they fall under. I will be focusing my research on four guests total for the sake of showing the podcasts diversity and range. Those four guests are all labeled under different categories on JRE’s website. I’ll be looking at guests under the categories of: Political, CEO,

Athletes, and Scientist.

Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician and has actually appeared on JRE three times now. Gabbard is a democrat and held office in the United States House of Representative from

Hawaii and is also a General in the U.S. Army Reserves. In the episode I want to analyze Rogan talked with Tulsi and Jocko Willink who is a retired Navy Seal officer, author, and fellow podcaster. During their time together the three arranged to talk about the recent democratic debates in 2020. But both Tulsi and Gabbard touched on many things during the two and a half hour conversation that are abstract and intriguing to viewers. From future leaders to reality TV the discussion went many directions as many JRE podcasts do. I find it valuable to analyze a politician because Rogan deals with a lot of politics and political commentary on his podcast.

Gabbard is a fascinating person to hear talk, she’s a democrat that most would say has both liberal and conservative ideas, but she brings a military background to conversations. She is an easy person to listen to as well, she did rather well in her 2020 presidential campaign and has many followers who believe she’s capable of being the first female president in the U.S. Rogan is one of those people, he likes her charisma and demeanor, she is a type of person that commands attention and attracts people to listen to her opinions. Since submitting her presidential candidacy and being succeeded in her office in the House of Representatives,

Gabbard has started doing her own podcasting show and has done appearances on other television shows where she has verbalized her criticism of the Democratic Party much as she did on JRE. She will be a great figure to represent the political culture and its broad spectrum of views.

Peter Schiff will be representing the CEO category. He is a stock broker and CEO of

Euro Pacific Capital Inc. and is also a private financial advisor and investor. The JRE episode with Schiff is very entertaining and informing. Peter is a very wealthy individual who is an expert on the economy. He has some very unique ideas on what he views as a fair and equal economy, which he dives fully into in his three hour JRE episode. As their discussion continues you can visually see Rogan learning many new things about the economy that he wasn’t previously aware of. It is a fun episode to watch, there is a lot of back and forth of exchanging thoughts and questions from Rogan to Schiff during the show as well, which is important in analyzing JRE because that element of curiosity that Joe brings really engages many listeners.

The two were able to touch on other things like the 2020 presidential election, recent social unrest and how to fix these communities, how minimum wage hurts workers, and the impacts of

Covid-19 economically. This episode brings a lot of substance to the audience and leaves them with current issues to think about and consider their stance on, both social and economically.

Sir Roger Penrose is a physicist, mathematician, philosopher and professor. He appeared on JRE in late 2018 to discuss physics, cosmology, extraterrestrial intelligence and quantum mechanics and consciousness. As a representative of the science community Penrose is very well respected and was endorsed by former colleague Stephen Hawking. Penrose is most known for winning the Nobel Prize, proving the fact that black holes are indeed real and could exist. He is a very intriguing guest to hear, as a listener it felt like the episode aged me by years just because

Penrose is so educated in his field on matters that even a scholar is somewhat ignorant to. From the start of the episode you can see on Rogan’s face that he is excited to be blown away by new facts and information he hears from Penrose. Their conversation carries on for quite a while with hardly a dull moment, Rogan seeming to ask every question that may come to his or his viewers mind. I think Joe handled the discussion he best he could, and Penrose did a great portion of the talking which is what everyone was intrigued by most. The episode also reached a very large audience, still having one of the highest viewing numbers of any JRE episode today.

Israel Adesanya is a professional UFC fighter and my athlete representative that has appeared on JRE. He is the current UFC Middleweight champion and has a fight soon to have a chance to become a double champion in the UFC Lightheavyweight division. Adesanya is quite the character, he has a bold personality, very good for a champion, he’s a great entertainer, and a super skilled fighter. Rogan and Israel are friends of one another from the relations with the UFC which brings an interesting dynamic to the podcast that I want to showcase. Their conversation is entertaining and fun, very free flowing and touches on many things inside and out of Adesanya’s career. The two had a two hour discussion in their episode back in 2019 and it really helped propel Israel forward in the public eye. I will touch on this more in my analysis but the amount of people that view JRE really gives a lot of publicity and more traction for its guests. It provides a platform to speak on whatever they choose and gives viewers a chance to get to know everything about the individual. In Adesanya’s case he had just become middleweight champion when he gave this interview, and afterwards put a lot of eyes on him in the fighting game because of the things he said and other fighters he called out on JRE. He went on to defend his belt twice since and next month will attempt to become the third ever UFC two division champion. Not to mention building his social media following by millions, signing several new endorsement deals, and his appearing as a host for his first PPV television event.

Bibliography

Carman, Ashley. “The Podcasting World Is Now Spotify versus Everybody Else.” The

Verge, The Verge, 21 May 2020, www.theverge.com/21265005/spotify-joe-rogan-experience- podcast-deal-apple-gimlet-media-ringer.

Peters, Justin. “How Joe Rogan's Hugely Popular Podcast Became an Essential Platform for ‘Freethinkers’ Who Hate the Left.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 21 Mar. 2019, slate.com/culture/2019/03/joe-rogans-podcast-is-an-essential-platform-for-freethinkers-who- hate-the-left.html.