iHeartMedia has entered into an settlement to amass Stuff Media, the pioneering podcast community behind such applications as Stuff You Should Know, Atlanta Monster and Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities. The buy, for a reported $55 million, would practically double iHeart’s utilization metrics and enhance its place because the No. 1 business podcast writer globally.
In Stuff Media, iHeart will quickly be capable of leverage a decade’s price of podcasts from one of many nation’s largest podcast publishers, which boasts greater than 61 million international streams and downloads monthly. The acquisition would convey with it Stuff Media’s skilled podcasting administration crew as nicely, together with president and CEO Conal Byrne, who will be a part of iHeartMedia as head of its podcast division.
Stuff Media’s branding will keep the identical and stay headquartered in Atlanta, the businesses mentioned. Billboard has confirmed that the acquisition does not embrace the 20-year-old HowStuffWorks reference website that spawned Stuff Media, which additionally consists of veteran applications like Stuff You Missed in History Class, TechStuff and MindStuff, in addition to Ridiculous History, MealsStuff, Stuff Mom Never Told You and Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know. Stuff You Should Know co-host Chuck Bryant — who doubles as head of growth on the community — launched a film interview present, Movie Crush, late final 12 months.
“While podcasting has already skilled large progress, the actual alternative to convey the total potential of podcasts to the mainstream nonetheless lies forward,” mentioned Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc. “Stuff Media is the unique trailblazer of the podcasting {industry}, and we’ve been impressed by its capacity to develop a large, loyal viewers over the previous decade, led by a powerful, skilled and cohesive administration crew, who we welcome to iHeartMedia.”
Pittman added, “This strategic acquisition will pair Stuff Media’s wildly widespread content material and powerful inventive capabilities with iHeartMedia’s in depth assets and big scale by means of our digital platforms, social attain and broadcast radio stations, introducing podcasts to the overwhelming majority of the nation and providing much more distinctive alternatives for advertisers to succeed in their customers.”
iHeart presently has two podcasts within the high 20 total on Apple Podcasts, Sleuth (No. 12) and Spit (No. 16).
Byrne mentioned that combining Stuff Media’s belongings with iHeart’s industry-leading publishing platform “provides us the unassailable place within the podcasting enterprise and a platform like nobody else. No firm on this planet has iHeart’s viewers dimension and progressive drive, and matched with the inventive engine of Stuff Media, this can be a game changer for podcast storytellers and advertisers alike, and I’m honored to be main this effort.”
Given that iHeartMedia is within the center of a Chapter 11 course of, their proposed acquisition of Stuff Media is topic to chapter court docket approval.
