Spotify executives have solely spent 10 per cent of their $100million (£81.75million) price range on a brand new fund to advertise music and audio content material by members of “traditionally marginalised teams”.
The Creator Fairness Fund was launched final yr within the wake of controversy surrounding Joe Rogan’s Spotify-exclusive podcast, The Joe Rogan Expertise, resulting from makes use of of the N-word and COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
Simply over a yr on, nevertheless, Bloomberg has discovered that the initiative has bought off to a sluggish begin. Spotify was discovered to have taken months to rent workers and cope with “shifting priorities”, and Bloomberg additionally obtained a memo which stated that at the start of the yr, they had been nonetheless finalising the fund’s price range and had been nonetheless finding out their precedence tasks.
A mission supervisor was appointed and groups assembled to pitch and create reveals and help with advertising and marketing, the initiative lacked sufficient of a construction by way of fielding tasks and funding.
“The Spotify Creator Fairness Fund is devoted to a wide range of initiatives that assist elevate and help an inclusive and numerous portfolio of artists and creators on the platform,” a spokesperson for Spotify stated in a press release. “We’re capable of empower and uplift underrepresented voices around the globe.”
Many retailers have identified that the Creator Fairness Fund had the identical price range as Rogan’s contract with Spotify (although others have estimated that his contract was price twice as a lot).
Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek additionally failed to say when the initiative was introduced how lengthy it will final, describing it solely as an “incremental funding.” A Spotify spokesperson insisted that the system was working, however stated that he fund was designed to final “a number of years” moderately than a set timeframe.
“We’re severely questioning this firm’s dedication to funding this committee, and by extension, the values it represents,” unionised staff at Spotify’s true crime podcast community Parcast wrote in a press release to Bloomberg.
Following the Rogan controversy final yr, the likes of Neil Younger, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash and Nils Lofgren all pulled their catalogues from the streaming platform as a method of protest.
