Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's £18million podcast deal defended by Spotify

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's multimillion pound podcast deal has been defended by Spotify after it began facing criticism.

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's multimillion pound podcast deal has been defended by Spotify. 
• The Archewell deal has been criticised for its cost and lack of frequent content.
• This royal news comes after it was revealed that Meghan will be able to make her second pregnancy 'her own' because of one royal rule she no longer has to follow. 

Harry and Meghan, who announced last month they are expecting their second child, have recently come under fire after the news of their Oprah Winfrey Interview became known. Now their Spotify podcast deal is being criticized for how much they were paid, and the company has had to defend it.

Harry and Meghan signed the deal with Spotify for their Archewell podcast for £18 million, the Telegraph reported.

The first episode featured special guests Elton John and James Cordon and even a little appearance from Archie to wish everyone a happy new year.

The contract was one of their first major business deals since leaving the UK, they have also since signed a deal with Netflix.

This deal has now come under fire as they were paid millions, while musicians are said to make around £0.0038 per stream of their songs. 

Horacio Gutierrez, Head of global affairs at Spotify was questioned about the deal at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee hearing. 

The Mirror has said that when asked about the deal Horacio said the value of the deal was based on how many listeners they thought the podcast would bring to the platform and how much advertising they would get as a result.

He said podcasts like Meghan and Harry's "attract people into the service, and therefore benefit everyone".

He continued, ‘There is clear evidence that having podcast offerings on the service benefits music consumption, so on the whole there’s a virtuous cycle that occurs."

Horacio said about the gap in pay for musicians, "We don't get to negotiate directly with artists the way we negotiate with podcasters or people who create podcasts so the structure of that market is very different."

He explained that Harry and Meghan are not the only podcasters they have signed on and that they plan to sign many more.