After leaving the White House, former President and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama formed Higher Ground Productions in a move to enter the entertainment industry that was capped in 2019 with a lucrative and exclusive deal to produce podcasts and other content for the Spotify audio streaming platform.
That deal was only for three years and is set to expire soon, though, and reports indicate that the Obamas and their production company are looking to leave Spotify and sign on with a different company, according to the Washington Examiner.
The impending breakup of the former presidential couple with the streaming service that helped launch their post-White House career — along with their lucrative content deal with Netflix that remains ongoing — appears to have sparked something of a bidding war to win over the Obamas with a new deal.
No new deal between the Obamas and Spotify
Bloomberg News was the first to report that the Obamas were looking elsewhere for a multimillion-dollar deal to replace the one with Spotify that will soon expire.
Potential suitors for the Obamas and Higher Ground reportedly include Amazon’s Audible along with iHeartRadio, but others could be in the mix as well.
One thing that almost certainly won’t happen is a renewal or renegotiation of the deal with Spotify, as the streaming service was said to have wanted more content from the Obamas themselves and to retain the exclusivity to that content that was integral to the original three-year deal.
That is a problem, though, in that the Obamas reportedly want to elevate and highlight new and younger voices other than their own and post their content to a variety of different platforms in order to garner a wider audience.
Spotify exit has been in the works for months
The Examiner noted that this isn’t the first time that there have been rumors of the Obamas seeking the exit door at Spotify but rather is something that has been floated previously in recent months.
Vanity Fair in February, as part of the coverage over the leftist-manufactured controversy over popular podcaster Joe Rogan’s Spotify program, referenced the anonymous rumblings of plans for the Obamas and Higher Ground to leave that streaming platform after its contract.
The reason for that was said to be frustration on the part of Higher Ground with the difficulties it allegedly experienced in getting new shows produced and up and running on the service.
Also mentioned was the divergence in views regarding content from Barack and Michelle themselves, as Spotify wanted more from them while they, as mentioned by Bloomberg, were looking to promote other individuals.
According to Bloomberg, the Obamas and Higher Ground are hoping to ink a new deal within the next few weeks, one that will reportedly be worth tens of millions of dollars, and we can rest assured that the mainstream media will be gushing with excitement in reporting on that eventual agreement whenever it eventually occurs.
