Serial entrepreneur Brad Smith, who founded podcast hosting platform Simplecast, has been named Head of Podcast Products for SiriusXM, effective immediately, the company tells RAIN. Smith will manage a team responsible for SiriusXM’s podcast product strategy across all of its owned platforms – including SiriusXM, Pandora, and Stitcher. Continue Reading
SiriusXM is making noise about a new multimedia ad campaign featuring a large and glittering array of celebrities including Kevin hart, Dave Grohl, LL COOL J, Bebe Rexha, Kehlani, Jeff Lewis, Helio Castroneves. A few selected SiriusXM DJs are also featured. The thrust of the campaign is out-of-car listening. Click through for a video; it’s funny. Continue Reading
June is Black History Month, siriusXM is marshalling its sprawling inventory of audio platforms in a combined celebration and promotion. The company, along with its Pandora and Stitcher subsidiaries, announced the launch of three exclusive limited-engagement channels, a groundbreaking original podcast, and specialty music programming. Continue Reading
In an interview at this week’s J.P. Morgan Technology, Media & Communications Conference, CEO Jennifer Witz held forth about SiriusXM’s business strategies and accomplishments. She predicted revenue growth, noted that podcasting is still small, and promised an opportunistic approach to acquisitions. Continue Reading
TikTok Radio is a headline new channel coming to SiriusXM, expanding the reach of the shortform video platform’s influence on the music industry. SiriusXM calls the new channel “groundbreaking,” and promises other collaborations across the Sirius/Pandora audio offerings. Other extensions of TikTok music already appear on Sirius-owned Pandora. Continue Reading
Today audio juggernaut SiriusXM is announcing the merger of three internal sales divisions attached to Sirius, Pandora, and Stitcher. Unifying the three ad sales entities creates a marketplace of 150-million listeners across a constellation of satellite programming, lean-back streaming music, and podcasting. The newly combined unit is called SXM Media. Continue Reading
In Q1 2021, SiriusXM added 126,000 net subscribers. Revenue grew 5% from a year ago. Net income was $219-million. Company execs answered questions about podcast subscriptions, and Pandora performance. Continue Reading
Emulating Spotify and The New York Times, and furthering an ongoing era of podcast consolidation, SiriusXM has acquired 99% Invisible Inc., the owner of the venerable 99% Invisible podcast and its spinoffs. The podcast was launched by host Roman Mars in 2010, which could be considered the Middle Ages of podcasting — an era between the rosy founding days of a new media category and the modern resurgence which started with NPR’s Serial in 2014. Click for details. Continue Reading
In a new demonstration of ART19’s history of using Stitcher as a fertile executive hunting ground, the podcasting technology and monetization company has hired David Murray as its new CFO. (Click through for a timeline of acquisitions and executives at Stitcher, Midroll, Scripps, ART19, and SiriusXM). Murray will help lead ART19’s expansion from pure SaaS business into a full-fledged media company. 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
On December 31 SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer will leave the company. Replacing him will be Jennifer C. Witz, currently Director of Sales. Simultaneously, Sirius CFO David J. Frear will step away, his role to be filled by Sean Sullivan, currently CFO of AMC Networks. Meyer has been CEO for eight years, overseeing the acquisitions of Pandora, Stitcher, and Simplecast. Continue Reading
Continuing the cross-channel programming and monetization which has been part of the SiriusXM/Pandora merger from the start, a pR is circulating today which advertises the sponsorship opportunities around the upcoming NFL 2020 season, which will be assertively covered by both platforms. Pandora will carry some curated analysis originating on the SiriusXM NFL Channel, and also program game-time music playlists. Continue Reading