Ask the model: how much is The Joe Rogan Experience generating in ad revenue?

Choose your own assumptions in estimating revenue in 2020 and beyond for The Joe Rogan Experience podcast with your very own Magellan AI-powered model. Interested in how much advertisers are spending? Sign up for a demo.

The podcast world has been buzzing this week about The Joe Rogan Experience heading exclusively to Spotify. While listeners will only be able to tune into Joe Rogan on Spotify, the podcast will continue to include ads . While terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, reports put the exclusive partnership in the neighborhood of $100mm or even $200mm.

How much ad revenue is The Joe Rogan Experience expected to generate in 2020, 2021 and beyond? There are only a few people in the world that can answer that definitively, but luckily we can all play at home.

We’ve created a model you can use to estimate advertising revenue for The Joe Rogan Experience. Try it out here.

We’re not re-inventing the wheel when it comes to estimating advertising spend: our model factors in downloads, the number of ads per episode, and price (CPM).

But as we do for each of the 21,000+ shows that we’ve analyzed, we’ve formulated our own assumptions about how much advertisers are spending on The Joe Rogan Experience. Below, we’ve provided some context to help you think about the assumptions you can plug into your own version of the model.

Downloads

We used Magellan AI’s proprietary model to generate a curve reflecting the growth in The Joe Rogan Experience’s downloads by episode.

But the shape of the curve is only one variable. The real question is: what’s the magnitude of the curve?

In an interview in April 2019, Joe said that his show (which publishes on both YouTube and podcast) gets 190mm downloads per month. Since Joe publishes an average of 18 episodes per month, the simple arithmetic suggests that the average episode could get as many as 10.6mm downloads.

However, that doesn’t account for listeners that go back and consume old episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience (the “back catalog”). Magellan AI’s analysis of episodes downloaded from The Joe Rogan Experience’s back catalog indicates that the podcast isn’t monetizing those listeners with new ads. But even assuming that 20% of the 10.6mm downloads per episode estimate are back-catalog, that would still leave a whooping 8.5mm downloads per episode.

It’s also worth noting that we don’t have clear context around the 190mm downloads number that Joe cited. Is that number reported in a way that’s consistent with IAB v2.0 podcast measurement guidelines? Does that number include people who consume the podcast via Joe’s YouTube feed? But even if you’re not sure what the actual number of downloads is per episode, you can use the model to test out different assumptions.

Number of ads per episode

Since 2017, Magellan AI has built our business around reporting ads running on popular podcasts to advertisers, agencies and publishers. Because of its popularity, we’ve analyzed almost every episode of The Joe Rogan Experience that’s been published.

In 2018, the average episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featured about 3 ads per episode. That number ticked up over the course of 2019 — and in 2020, most episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience feature 4 pre-roll ads.

Curiously, The Joe Rogan Experience doesn’t run mid-roll ads, although that’s something Spotify and PMM may be considering.

Price

According to Midroll, podcast advertising rates can range from $18–$50 CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

It’s also worth keeping in mind that very popular podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience might ask advertisers to pay a flat fee per episode. That benefits the podcast by providing a predictable revenue stream — but it also benefits the advertiser if a particular podcast episode experiences a bump in downloads because Joe is smoking a joint with a controversial figure. Deals like this could drive the CPM down below the $18 value suggested by Midroll.

Putting it all together

So how much ad revenue is The Joe Rogan Experience generating? You can plug your own assumptions for each of the variables above into our model to estimate advertising revenue in 2020 and 2021.

Curious as to which advertisers are spending money on The Joe Rogan Experience or anyone of 21,000+ other podcasts analyzed by Magellan AI? Sign up for a demo.

How could we improve this model in the future?

As the saying goes, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” There are a number of ways we could improve upon the model we shared:

• Model a dip in downloads when The Joe Rogan Experience moves to Spotify exclusively, since it’s possible that at least some listeners might not follow.
• Allow for changes in the number of ads over time. In the model we shared, you can only set “number of ads” once; instead, this could be an assumption that varies for each year.
• Allow for changes in the price of ads by position. This could become more relevant as the show tests mid-roll ads.
• Breakout audience growth from audience loss. Currently, our show growth model represents the net change in audience, rather than letting the user make their own assumptions.

Have other ideas? Drop us a line: research@magellan.ai

Magellan AI creates tools that help marketers at brands like SimpliSafe and ThredUP spend intelligently on podcast advertising. Podcast publishers like WNYC and Audioboom use Magellan to track advertisers spending money in the podcast space.

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