Harry and Megan dubbed "fucking grifters" by Spotify exec and podcaster

[Qbish]

No great surprise there... Would love to hear his story about Zooming Prince Harry, I can only imagine his frustration with the whining ninny!

Leading Spotify figure lashes out at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after end of podcast deal | The Independent

The media is our bastion of truth and honesty, nobody question them or take them to court for illegal acts or you're just like Trump! 🙄

There is no perfect solution so this is why, on balance, I’d prefer a free press that occasionally goes too far over giving the super wealthy even more power to suppress criticism

on balance, I’d prefer a free press that occasionally goes too far over giving the super wealthy even more power to suppress criticism

That's more or less where I'm at too, tigger

Fortunately most people, or at least those I know, are capable of seeing the worst media nonsense for what it is, and for those who aren't I'm not sure there'd be any difference - doubly so anyone who gets their "information" from the likes of Twitter (and good luck trying to regulate things like that, which is a whole other issue in itself)

Bloomberg, I know have 'sources' at all of the major corporates/financial institutions. People they go to for intel if the organisation is in the news. These sources are typically authorised to speak on behalf of the organisation - or at least the organisation knows that they are speaking with financial press. They will often, however, print the sources quotes as anonymous 'as the individual concerned is not authorised to speak on such matters'. This is to prevent it being viewed as an 'official communication' etc..

I know this because it happens all the time where I used to work. Stuff gets deliberately leaked to financial press all the time.

That is the way financial journalism works - they have people they go to for information. They don't make stuff up.

Financial Markets hate surprises so often this stuff is leaked through ‘sources first’ before any official statements

Bloomberg, I know have 'sources' at all of the major corporates/financial institutions. People they go to for intel if the organisation is in the news. These sources are typically authorised to speak on behalf of the organisation - or at least the organisation knows that they are speaking with financial press. They will often, however, print the sources quotes as anonymous 'as the individual concerned is not authorised to speak on such matters'. This is to prevent it being viewed as an 'official communication' etc..

This is what an “off the record” briefing is - the words/information can be published, but cannot be publicly attributed to a named individual. They are entirely legitimate and used all the time in media offices all over the world to give statements and viewpoints to the media.

H&M brokered massive deals - and the financial impact on companies when they fail to produce the content, and therefore the deal drops out, is news in the business world. It will have left Spotify with a massive hole in their financial planning - I'm sure H&M were viewed as the Goose laying the golden egg in terms of profit generation. It has a knock on affect for Netflix, who is struggling anyway, as there has to be questions about their expectations of what the deal with H&M will bring.

So financial journalist are of course reporting it, there is no big conspiracy. It's simply that H&M have put themselves into this world with these deals. How those deals pan out is news. If they were massively successful (like the sales of Spare) then that would have been news too. Just like the sales of Spare were news - there was no call for privacy on that, or the suggestion that it was inappropriate to discuss those sales figures.

The constant attempts to say that all negative press is paid for by the RF, and to shut down discussion of H&M failures is what makes it feel concerning in terms of freedom of debate. If the sales of Spare can be reported, so can the deals that don't go well. Attacking the reputations and ethics of Bloomberg and WSJ is actually pretty shocking. By all means attack the Fail, but everyone who reports on the reality of the failure of H&M to produce content isn't corrupt.

This is absolute nonsense. There are whole rule books governing what and when companies have to disclose things. They don’t apply to day to day press comments like this.

Spotify’s whole strategy of giving big names megabucks for exclusivity really has not paid off… M&H are a case study rather than the whole story. According to reports the amount withheld was relatively small, so they will get most of the fee despite only delivering 1 series and a special. I think Spotify even admits their strategy was bad. That said I do think Harry especially should have made more of an effort to deliver though. It doesn’t speak well of him that he didn’t feel an obligation to deliver a commercial product for such an eye watering amount of money.

@tigger2022 Agree. It raises questions about decision making at Spotify and Netflix if the deals fail. Once confidence goes, then the damage just spirals. Business schools creat6e case studies of success and failure all the time and you have to wonder if chasing 'names', rather than 'talent' will have been a sign of a the 'doom cycle' that businesses can fall into.

@Wheresthebeach yeah podcasts had a moment during the pandemic and people assumed it was the golden goose, so there was an arms race to sign these big names. It’s definitely over now though. Not sure when Joe Rogan’s contract comes to an end but it will be interesting to see whether he gets renewed and if he does how close the figure is to the original. They expected audiences to follow all these big names and they really didn’t in large enough numbers. Ironically in the case of Archetypes what got them the contract in the first place (being royal family evacuees) is what hammered the nail in the coffin for the project - their audience didn’t need to follow them to Spotify because the interesting bits of content were front page of every tabloid.

@Serenster

Markets expect earnings of x, they then start to adjust expectations if necessary in advance of official announcements , People can start talking to journalists about ‘tough market conditions, challenging subscriber retention, to temper market expectations

Ditto, ‘a change of policy’ away from high value celebrity contracts to to smaller niche players etc happens in

@tigger2022 That's a good point about the impact of the attention they got on the viewing figures. Mind you, that's not what killed the deal, they simply didn't create the content. I'm not sure what could be more damaging in the business world than failing to fulfil your contract. Spotify are saying this to shore up their own position, to explain the loss, and to land the blame clearly at Harry to protect their business position.

I didn't mean to imply she was like Trump in any sense of espousing the same values.

Just that the pair seem to be using one tactic in the same way

How simply wonderful - independent market analysts and journalists (not the companies themselves) will predict how companies might be doing in adverse market conditions as you describe. But if a company itself knows that they won’t meet their trading forecasts, they have an immediate obligation to release that news to the market (via a RNS message before the markets open). The company will be in breach of the listing rules if they do not. If a company was found to be trying to soften the news of a trading update by “adjusting expectations” in advance of an announcement as you say above, that’s market manipulation.

So it's categorically, definitely a load an absolute crap that Harry ever broached an idea to anyone connected with Spotify that he might interview Donald Trump?

I think it was a flaw in Spotify’s whole strategy! Even if they had created brilliant, flawless podcasts, I don’t think they or anyone else would have pulled an audience the size Spotify needed to recoup their fee and make a profit. In M&H’s case it’s also because exclusivity isn’t really exclusivity, because anything interesting will be re-reported elsewhere for free.

No, where says that?

That's what I'd like to know. What is the truth here?

Well Harry hasn’t denied it (yet) and I suspect if it was utterly untrue he would have

Sorry not sure what you mean?

Totally disagree. When the likes of the DM can publish 34 articles about her and him in a 24 hour period, I am sure they have better things to do (like living a life,) than issuing endless statements about the bollocks printed about them.

It raises questions about decision making at Spotify and Netflix if the deals fail. Once confidence goes, then the damage just spirals

True enough, but this also feeds into the point about H&M being seen as "the golden goose" at the time
With Harry in particular they might have done better to consider what he was actually capable of doing, rather than relying too much on a headline name

Has William denied his affairs? His temper? he has also taken publications to court and denied he bullied his brother with a public statement so if we use the same logic with him, all the rumours he hasn't denied are also true until he says otherwise? seems the two are held to completely different standards,

Did William deny he bullied Harry in a public statement? I didn't see it. I thought they'd all risen above the rather lurid claims in "Spare"?