The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience is a free audio and video talk podcast hosted by American comedian, actor, sports commentator, and television host Joe Rogan. It was launched on December 24, 2009 by Rogan and his friend, comedian Brian Redban who also produced and co-hosted. It has grown to become one of the world’s most popular podcasts, spawning a community of listeners around the globe.
On August 18, 2017, it reached its 1,000th episode with Joey Diaz and Tom Segura as guests.
== History ==
Around 2003, Rogan hired Brian Redban, a self-taught video editor and an employee at a Gateway computer store in Ohio, to work for him full time to film, produce, and edit videos for his website. Redban, a fan of Rogan and comedian Doug Stanhope who had tried stand-up at open mic nights in Ohio, met and befriended the two through the Internet. He then started to produce videos for Stanhope, which led to Rogan offering him trips to film at his own stand-up gigs. Redban accepted Rogan's offer to work with him, and relocated to California in the process, following Rogan with a camera "and recording everything". After several years, Redban later said Rogan's fans wanted more content and delivered faster, and sought new ways to make the lengthy editing process easier and more interactive for the audience. Coupled with his interest in popular live video streaming services of the time, Redban wanted "to do the same thing I was filming, but live", and set up live streams on Justin.tv from the green room at Rogan's comedy gigs. Following several broadcasts, Rogan suggested to host a live stream with Redban from his home and talk to fans in a chat room, using the audio of the video stream as a podcast.
Rogan and Redban recorded the first episode on December 24, 2009, which initially took the form as live weekly broadcast on Ustream with the two "sitting in front of laptops bullshitting". Redban had no prior experience with audio engineering, so he taught himself to operate the mixing board and microphone setups. Early episodes featured a snowflake effect that was incorporated into the video stream that they later revisited in 2015 in episode #674 and in 2017 to commemorate episode #1000. The first guest on the podcast was comedian Ari Shaffir who appeared on the third episode broadcast on January 6, 2010. The podcast had its first sponsor in the sex toy production company Fleshlight, a partnership that began in May 2010 and lasted until mid-2012 when the company claimed it had saturated their market. By August 2010, the podcast was named The Joe Rogan Experience and was recorded several times a week. In May 2011, Rogan secured a deal with SiriusXM, a subscription-based satellite radio service, to have the podcast air on its talk channel The Virus.
In 2013, Redban started to reduce his time as the podcast's sole producer. He explained in the following year that Rogan had started to record multiple podcasts in a day, "and it got to the point where [Rogan] wanted to keep on going, six, seven hours" which caused too much work for him to handle by himself. As a result, Jamie Vernon was hired as a second producer, initially as Redban's assistant, to fill in, leaving Redban to produce "about half of the episodes". Vernon soon became the sole producer, with Redban subsequently appearing on the podcast as a guest.
The podcast was originally recorded at Rogan's home in California. From November 24, 2011, some episodes were recorded at the Ice House Comedy Club in Pasadena, California, also known as the Deathsquad Studios. Since November 27, 2012, the majority of episodes have been recorded in a private studio that Rogan acquired in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles.
The 1,000th episode aired on August 18, 2017 and featured comedians Joey Diaz and Tom Segura as guests.
== Reception ==
The podcast has become one of the most popular in the United States. In August 2010, nine months after its launch, it entered list of Top 100 podcasts on iTunes. The podcast was voted Best Comedy Podcast of 2012 by users of iTunes. In February 2014, the podcast won a Stitcher Award for Best Overall Show at its 2013 edition of its awards. In January 2015, the podcast was listened to by over 11 million people. By October 2015, it had grown to acquire 16 million downloads a month.
== References ==
== External links ==
* Official website
* The Joe Rogan Experience on iTunes
* The Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube
Category:English-language podcasts
Category:Audio podcasts
Category:Comedy and humor podcasts
Category:Talk podcasts
Category:Video podcasts
Category:2009 podcast debuts