Mr. Joe Rogan is rollin’ — in the dough.

For my money, there’s no better multimedia infotainment/philosophical exploration going than the great Joe Rogan Experience.

If you’ve never checked it out, I highly recommend you give the podcast a listen. Joe is truly an open-minded guy, and he understands that interviews are about the subject — not the host.

JRE welcomes folks from across the political spectrum — from Sam Harris to Ben Shapiro — via a cornucopia of characters from actors to professional wrestlers to astrophysicists to conspiracy theorists to technological revolutionaries.

Episodes of Joe’s show can be heard on iTunes and seen on YouTube, but that’s all set to change: Rogan’s signed a deal that’ll soon put his program squarely and exclusively on Spotify.

The standup comedian broke the news via Instagram:

“Hello everybody, I have an announcement. The podcast is moving to Spotifiy. I signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Spotify that will start on September 1. Starting on September 1, the entire JRE library will be available on Spotify, as well as all the other platforms. Then somewhere around the end of the year, it will become exclusive to Spotify, including the video version of the podcast.”

View this post on Instagram

Announcement: the podcast is moving to @spotify! Starting on September 1 the podcast will be available on Spotify as well as all platforms, and then at the end of the year it will move exclusively to Spotify, including the video version. It will remain FREE, and it will be the exact same show. It’s just a licensing deal, so Spotify won’t have any creative control over the show. They want me to just continue doing it the way I’m doing it right now. We will still have clips up on YouTube but full versions of the show will only be on Spotify after the end of the year. I’m excited to have the support of the largest audio platform in the world and I hope you folks are there when we make the switch!

A post shared by Joe Rogan (@joerogan) on May 19, 2020 at 11:30am PDT

And for all you fans, don’t worry — Joe’s not changing for nobody:

“It will be the exact same show. I am not going to be an employee of Spotify. We are going to be working with the same crew doing the exact same show. The only difference is that it will now be available on the largest audio platform in the world. … Nothing else will change, it will be free to you. You just have to go to Spotify to get it. We are very excited to begin this new chapter of JRE, and I hope you are there when we cross over.”

So why is this newsworthy? Well, partly, because of the price tag attached.

Consider the fact that Joe essentially just wandered into this — it wasn’t a well-crafted plan. He began doing interviews for fun, and things just kind of went their own way.

And now, as noted by MMA Mania, his ‘cast is one of the most popular in the world.

And the Spotify deal is an incredible example of how much entertainment has changed — and how amazing an opportunity we all have, to share our offerings with the world if we so choose.

Joe encourages people to start their own podcast. It’s not — he says — that hard.

Unless you mean, in his case, cold hard cash.

As relayed by The Wall Street Journal, Joe’s Spotify deal is reportedly worth more than $100 million.

I’ll say it again: $100 million.

Given this new frontier of access, it seems to me, Hollywood is over. At least, the old version is. Movie stars? They’ve been upstaged by social media celebs. Videocasters. YouTubists. TikTok titans.

And as for JRE, the unedited content offers no echo-chambered isolation. No safe space or left-only turns. Joe’s program is about ideas — all of them, from everywhere. Conservative. Liberal. And anything in between. It’s a free-for-all that challenges you to think, rather than telling you what to.

One of the show’s greatest virtues, in my opinion, is its lack of any set run time. A guest comes on, and they just talk — with all the freedom to have a nuanced, in-depth discussion. And so they do — until the conversation’s run its natural course.

Congratulations to Joe on the Spotify deal, and congrats to us as well — Rogan’s said many times he doesn’t “need” to keep doing the show, so I’ve wondered if he might call it quits in the near future. It’s good to know there’s a lot more coming.

And if you’ve been thinking of starting your own show, there’s no better time than now. America’s at home and ready to tune in.

-ALEX

See 3 more pieces from me:

Made in Germany: Hamburg Cafe Takes a Hilarious Approach to Social Distancing

Take a Peek Into Portland’s Drive-Thru Strip Joint, and Gawk Over Its Name for Disrobed Deliveries

Woman Gets Shot in the Chest, Her Implant Deflects the Bullet

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below.