Talk about diversifying. In the most startling rumor of a streaming music acquisition, merchant payment enabler Square is reportedly considering an acquisition of HiRez, musician-owned Tidal. This Rumor Fact(ory) is based on the usual “unnamed sources” who spoke with Bloomberg. Click through for more context on Dorsey and Tidal. Continue Reading
The Spotify podcast deal-making dreadnought sails on, now signing the ex-royal couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to an exclusive production arrangement. The model seems to be taken from the Spotify/Obamas deal which tied a new production company, Higher Ground, to Spotify (not an equity acquisition). Likewise, Harry and Meghan have fashioned a production company called Archewell Audio. Click through for details and a trailer. Continue Reading
UK-centered media company Global has struck a partnership with The Story Lab, an offshoot of dentsu international. The arrangement is focused on podcasts, with the two entities co-commissioning a slate of six new shows over the next 12 months. The launch show is set — it is Hunting Ghislaine, investigating the elusive and controversial life of Ghislaine Maxwell. Other original productions could be in True Crime, Comedy, Entertainment, and Sports. Continue Reading
iHeartMedia announces today that it has accomplished a partnership with Pushkin Industries, the audio production company founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018. The alliance makes iHeartMedia the exclusive sales partner for Pushkin podcasts. Beyond the sales effort, the two companies will co-produce new shows, with a project timeline stretching over the next two years. Two of those shows are sketched out in today’s announcement. Continue Reading
The consolidation trend which has defined and accelerated enterprise podcasting for the past four years has a new story to tell today. iHeartMedia has reached agreement to fully acquire Voxnest, parent company of the Spreaker hosting and technology platform. Technology is the main impetus for this alignment, from iHeart’s perspective. Voxnest self-describes as “an audio technology company, specializing in podcasting solutions.” Click through for details, perspective, and quotes. Continue Reading
SiriusXM has closed its acquisition of Stitcher, three months after the July announcement that the satellite giant would buy the pioneering podcast company. Stitcher joins Pandora as a wholly-owned Sirius company. SiriusXM also has an exclusive ad sales partnership with Soundcloud. Today’s announcement puts the combined audience at 150-million listeners, and calls that reach “the largest addressable audience in North America across all categories of digital audio – music, sports, talk, and podcasts.” Continue Reading
In a blockbuster domain acquisition which indicates strategic purpose, Amazon has acquired the domains podcast.com and podcsting.com, we learned from Podnews. The domains lead to the Audible landing page for podcasts. Audible does not distribute public podcasts via RSS, but it does create originals. This is a land grab by Amazon-owned Audible, and it seems like the company is creating a unique category definition and experience of audio storytelling. Continue Reading
Media company Religion of Sports is affiliating with PRX to expand its podcast activity in 2021. PRX is announcing the multi-faceted collaboration today. Religion of Sports was founded by creator Gotham Chopra, six-time Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady, and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan. To date it has mainly been known for this video content. The idea here is to push deeper into podcasting next year. Continue Reading
Bloomberg is reporting that podcast network Wondery is for sale, hopin to attract a buyer in the $200-400-million range. This according to unidentified sources for the Bloomberg report. According to those sources, Wondery revenue will surpass $40-million this year. Continue Reading
Podcast hosting giant Libsyn is announcing a new partnership with Player FM, a podcast listening app and discovery engine. The deal is effective immediately, and Libsyn’s clients can distribute their shows to Player FM starting now. Libsyn’s research indicates that Player FM is a top-10 3rd-party aggregation app by number of downloads. Continue Reading
Podcast measurement and attribution company Chartable has completed a $2.25M fundraising round led by Initialized Capital. Chartable joins over 120 companies in the Initialized Capital portfolio, which includes Reddit, Patreon, and Instacart. Continue Reading
Wonder Media Network, the podcast content company whose mission is to amplify underrepresented voices, has signed with WME (the talent agency part of the broader Endeavor company). WME will exclusively represent WMN, and help the young network diversify into books, TV, and other categories. Continue Reading