The Duchess of Sussex was honoured at the Gracie Awards as one of its digital media national winners for her Spotify podcast
Meghan Markle's podcast which Spotify paid a reported £15m to secure has failed to pay off for the media giant as further job cuts have been announced.
Spotify will cut 200 jobs from its podcast business in its second round of redundancies this year, as the firm continues to recover from its huge investment into the sector failing to yield financial success.
The music streaming giant announced it will make cuts equivalent to two per cent of its workforce as it reorganises the podcast side of its business.
It comes as Spotify announced earlier this year it was reducing
its headcount by around six per cent with around 600 jobs being axed.
In
January, Dawn Ostroff, who was responsible for leading the negotiations on
Meghan and Harry's three year-deal with Spotify which is worth an estimated
£15million left the company.
Spotify CEO, Ek said that Ostroff,
the streaming company's chief content and advertising officer had "decided
to depart Spotify".
The Duchess of Sussex released a podcast
series in 2022 named 'Archetypes with Meghan'.
The series has 12
episodes and includes guest appearances from Serena Williams, Mariah Carey
and Paris Hilton.
Spotify describes Archetypes with Meghan as "a
podcast where we investigate, dissect, and subvert the labels that try to
hold women back."
The Duchess of Sussex was honoured at the 48th annual Gracie
Awards as one of its digital media national winners for her Spotify
podcast.
In a statement shared on the Archewell Foundation
website, Meghan said: "Thank you to the Alliance for Women in Media
Foundation for this prestigious honour.
"This is a shared success
for me and the team behind Archetypes – most of whom are women – and the
inspiring guests who joined me each week."
The Swedish music
giant has invested more than £810million in building out its podcast
business which currently has more than four million titles but that has
eroded its gross margins.
The company also spent a whopping £162million on securing Joe
Rogan's podcast on a multi-year deal.
Earlier this year, Spotify
CEO Ek said: “In hindsight, I probably got a little carried away and
over-invested relative to the uncertainty we saw shaping up in the
market."
He added: "I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our
revenue growth."
