Spotify Exec Courtney Holt Exits The Company After Four-Plus-Year Run

After moving to America to launch the successful The Late Late Show back in 2015, James Corden has announced that he will be stepping back as its host in 2023. Since moving to LA seven years ago, the Gavin and Stacey actor, 43, has seen his career stateside go from strength-to-strength after securing several high profile roles on-screen.

James Corden has gone viral regularly since he started hosting The Late Late Show in 2015.

Spotify said it is not experiencing any negative effects from blowback over podcast hosts like Joe Rogan, with the company’s first-quarter results exceeding Wall Street forecasts.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSpotify topped guidance for total monthly listeners in the first quarter of 2022, despite the loss of 1.5 million paid subscribers in Russia and a roiling controversy over Joe Rogan’s podcast that had elicited calls for a boycott.The audio streamer’s monthly average user base grew 19% in Q1, to 422 million, representing a net gain of 16 million in the period. Spotify exceeded expectations on MAU growth even excluding a “one-time benefit” of 3 million users who had created new accounts to access the service after an outage in early March.Spotify netted 2 million Premium subscribers, to reach 182 million (up 15% year over year).

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSpotify topped guidance for total monthly listeners in the first quarter of 2022, despite the loss of 1.5 million paid subscribers in Russia and a roiling controversy over Joe Rogan’s podcast that had elicited calls for a boycott.The audio streamer’s monthly average user base grew 19% in Q1, to 422 million, representing a net gain of 16 million in the period (more than twice its previous forecast). Spotify topped expectations on MAU growth even excluding a “one-time benefit” of 3 million users who had created new accounts to access the service after an outage in early March.Spotify netted 2 million Premium subscribers, to reach 182 million (up 15% year over year).

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could soon become one of the biggest power couples in Hollywood, an expert predicts. Former US President Donald Trump has urged the Queen to strip the Sussexes of all their royal titles and according to popular culture guru Nick Ede, they’d rocket to fame as a result.

Michelle Obama will not be renewing their lucrative podcast partnership with Spotify after clashing with the streaming giant over exclusivity and how much they were expected to appear in episodes.  The former first couple are said to be looking instead for a new deal at Amazon with its Audible service, or at iHeartMedia, according to Bloomberg which first revealed that the arrangement was not being renewed.  The Obama's signed their deal with Spotify in 2019 for an undisclosed sum but it is likely to be in the realm of $30million, the amount scored by Harry and Meghan in 2019 for a multi-year deal.

inked a three-year agreement for an undisclosed amount. According to Bloomberg and The Los Angeles Times, the couple will not be renewing their contract, which ends in October, and they are now seeking a new home for their podcasts.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorHigher Ground, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s media company, is ending its exclusive podcast deal with Spotify and is shopping for other partners in the podcasting space, Variety has confirmed.The Obamas are exiting their exclusive pact with Spotify, originally inked in 2019, after being frustrated with the company’s exclusive terms — primarily, they want to have their podcast programming as widely distributed as possible, according to a source familiar with the situation. Higher Ground also has disagreed with Spotify over how many of its shows would feature the former president and first lady, as first reported by reported by Bloomberg.Reps for Spotify and Higher Ground declined to comment.

Following a series of health setbacks, royal followers are wondering if Prince Harry is visiting the Queen anytime soon. Though Harry will attend The Invictus Games in the Netherlands, one royal expert believes it is very unlikely that the red-headed former royal will visit his home country to see the Queen after she dropped out of her family’s Easter Sunday celebrations. 

@Spotify I was [lucky] enough to lead and interact with,” Holt wrote on Twitter. “The goals we set were ambitious, and yet we achieved so much.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCourtney Holt, a top executive in Spotify’s podcasting business and a four-year veteran of the company, is leaving the streaming giant, a source close to the situation has confirmed to Variety. The source said that Holt’s departure was his decision and is amicable, and that he will stay on as an advisor to the company for the next several months at least.

Meghan Markle is said to be planning to join her husband Prince Harry at the Invictus Games in Holland. The couple's arrival in Europe will come as a huge surprise to many if it goes ahead, as the pair decided not to come back to the UK for Prince Philip's memorial service at Westminster Abbey this month.

Archewell Audio, the production company launched by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, has filed an application to trademark the word "Archetypes," Fox News Digital has learned. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database, the application was filed two days after the Duchess of Sussex announced her forthcoming Spotify podcast, titled "Archetypes," last month.

Happy World Health Day! Every year, the World Health Organization sets a different theme for the holiday, and for 2022, the focus is “Our planet, our health.”

Meghan Markle is attempting to trademark the word “archetypes” – the name of her first Spotify podcast series – it is claimed. The application for exclusive use of the word was made at the at the US Patent and Trademark Office last month by Archewell Audio, one of the companies established by Meghan and Prince Harry. The list of goods and services involved are “in the fields of cultural treatment of women and stereotypes facing women” and include podcasts, TV shows, and entertainment services distributed in various ways, the Daily Mail reports.

Niall Horan, Celine Dion, Michael Bublé, Justin Beiber and Iggy Azalea – and drives them about as if it’s a carpool. They play songs – usually belonging to the artist, but sometimes playing other hits – and have a hearty sing-song. Carpool Karaoke is back and it begins April 6th with @NICKIMINAJ! pic.

Manori Ravindran International EditorFew people can say their comfort zone is in playing strong women, but for Gillian Anderson, it ’s become something of a personal brand.The American-British actor, who was once best-known for her skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully in Fox’s long-running sci-fi hit “The X-Files,” has gone on to play detective Stella Gibson in “The Fall,” notorious British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Crown” and sex therapist Jean Milburn in “Sex Education.” (And you wouldn’t want to cross any of them.)Anderson — who will receive the Variety Icon Award in a ceremony at CannesSeries on April 1 — will next be seen portraying the rarely dramatized Eleanor Roosevelt, opposite Viola Davis’ Michelle Obama and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Betty Ford, in Showtime’s drama “The First Lady.” But portraying no-nonsense women didn’t begin as a conscious choice for Anderson. In 1993, she recognized a “stark difference” between the Dana Scully role and “pretty much everything else on television at the time,” though, at age 24, she wouldn’t have labelled Scully as the feminist icon she’d come to represent.“I don’t think it was as clear-cut in my mind as being, ‘Oh, this is a feminist character,’” she says.