Libsyn partners with Player FM for greater exposure for hosted podcasts

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.

Libsyn’s hosting product and philosophy are geared around custom feeds to top listening apps like Spotify, Deezer, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and others. Player FM will get that dedicated control also. In all these instances Libsyn customers have granular control of how and where their shows are distributed. This product philosophy differs from one-click publishing platforms which advertise ease of publishing, but provide less control. An example given to us by Libsyn is that a podcast which uses ad-stitching monetization on Libsyn ,can turn that feature off if the podcast has a dedicated ad deal with a distribution app. (Disclosure: RAIN News’ Pod Drop podcast is hosted on Libsyn.)

Back to Player FM — the service holds a library of over 20 million free podcasts segmented into more than 500 niche topics. Player FM is a cross platform podcast service, offering apps on web, mobile web, iOS, Android, Apple Watch, Android Wear and Android Auto. Player FM was acquired earlier this year by Maple Media, a Los Angeles-based mobile media, advertising and technology company.

“Libsyn has continued to maintain strong relationships with partners that can provide our podcaster customers with numerous distribution channels,” said Libsyn President and Chief Operation Officer, Laurie Sims. “We are delighted to be working with a reputable platform like Player FM, which boasts millions of app downloads and strong user ratings.”

“We acquire and operate leading consumer software products and couldn’t be more excited about the future of podcasting in the media landscape, which is why we acquired Player FM earlier this year,” said Michael Ritter, CEO of Maple Media. “A partnership with an industry leader like Libsyn is instrumental in expanding the content available for Player FM’s millions of monthly active users and over 90 million lifetime users, while making additional distribution and podcast analytics effortless for Libsyn’s content creator user base. This is the latest of several major investments we’ve made in the Player FM platform since our acquisition and we’re excited to help the podcast ecosystem continue to grow.”

Brad Hill