Meghan Markle’s podcast failure leaves Spotify execs ‘nervous?

Meghan Markle’s Spotify podcast Archetypes ended this week but a royal expert has suggested that the series’ lackluster performance on the streaming platform may be making executives ‘nervous’.

Writing for News AU, expert Daniela Elser slammed the Duchess of Sussex’s podcast, that ran for 12 weeks starting in August, 2022, saying that it is sure to have left Spotify executives ‘nervous’ after it failed to perform.

Elser noted: “If Books Could Kill is a podcast about airport bestsellers by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. It has only released three episodes so far, yet at the time of writing was beating Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s podcast Archetypes on the Spotify charts.”

She then added, “… After its 12-week run, there just might be a few nervous executives at Spotify – you know, the ones who paid a reported $32 million to sign up Meghan and husband Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.”

Elser went on to explain how the hype around Archetypes died down soon after its opening success, writing: “Despite kicking off in late August amid much fanfare – including Times Square billboards and briefly taking out the number one podcast spot – the Archetypes launch bang has been reduced to a puttering whimper with the show currently down in the 31st most popular slot on the streaming platform…”

The expert also highlighted that “not a single one of Archetype’s dozen episodes is in the top 100-episode chart either.”

The scathing comments came just a day after Meghan closed out her Archetypes podcast series on Tuesday with an episode titled Man-ifesting A Cultural Shift, with guests Andy Cohen, Trevor Noah, and Judd Apatow.