Want me luck as I enterprise into I-95 Friday visitors to get to a marriage at this time. It’s not for the faint of coronary heart, however I’m excited to dwell like a Connecticut blue blood for a night with my gin and tonic and secrets and techniques.
In the present day: Conan’s price ticket, Spotify’s new fiction chief, and Vulture’s new flagship pod.
Enjoyable with filings: SiriusXM (in all probability) paid $93 million for Workforce Coco
We love discovering a nugget of gold buried in an SEC submitting! SiriusXM reported its Q2 earnings yesterday (TL;DR: they have been high-quality) and needed to disclose current acquisition prices. They don’t label their acquisitions (impolite!!), however there may be one which fairly clearly appears to be like just like the Conan O’Brien deal.
SiriusXM says an acquisition it made on Could twentieth, 2022, was value $93 million. That traces up with the deal’s timing because the announcement got here out in The Wall Road Journal on Could twenty third with the deal having already gone by means of. The quantity additionally suits. WSJ reported the deal was value round $150 million, together with a five-year contract for O’Brien. In the event that they paid $93 million for the corporate, that leaves $57 million for expertise prices (and $10 million a 12 months for Good King Conan is sensible). Representatives from SiriusXM and Workforce Coco didn’t instantly reply to request for remark.
The Workforce Coco acquisition is a key a part of SiriusXM’s technique to spice up its podcasting and promoting arms as Pandora hemorrhages paid subscribers (it misplaced one other 9,000 final quarter). The corporate has minimize advert rep and distribution offers with high podcasts like Crime Junkie and Pod Save America and just lately introduced a partnership with Comscore to make use of its advert concentrating on software.
Spotify names head of scripted fiction
Batman Unburied was massive for Spotify, and it’s not slowing down on Hollywood audio content material. The corporate has promoted Gimlet govt Mimi O’Donnell to go of scripted fiction, and she’s going to assist oversee new reveals, together with an upcoming Jordan Peele venture and the English adaptation of Caso 63 with Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. As head of scripted content material at Gimlet for the previous six years, O’Donnell produced buzzy reveals like Sandra with Alia Shawkat and Motherhacker with Carrie Coon.
In her new function, O’Donnell will report to go of speak studios Julie McNamara and the incoming managing director of Gimlet. Gimlet has nonetheless not discovered a alternative for Lydia Polgreen, who introduced in April she is leaving her function as MD to return to The New York Instances.
SoundExchange will get a brand new CTO
SoundExchange, an entity that collects and distributes recording royalties from audio streamers to artists, has named Luis Bonilla its new chief know-how officer. Within the new function, Bonilla will oversee SoundExchange’s tech methods that allow its royalty collections. Bonilla has labored on the group for 11 years, most just lately serving as the corporate’s senior vp of operations. “With over a decade of expertise enhancing our knowledge and processes, Luis is uniquely positioned to champion new applied sciences that may guarantee music is appropriately valued, within the U.S. and abroad,” SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe mentioned in an announcement.
SoundExchange is a key conduit between streamers like Spotify and Apple and artists and just lately filed swimsuit in opposition to Slacker Radio father or mother LiveOne. SoundExchange claims that Slacker, which was acquired by LiveOne (then LiveXLive) in 2018, has been delinquent on its royalty funds since 2017.
Recent pods
Truthfully, I’m out of latest pods to take heed to, so suggestions are welcome in my inbox (the most effective discovery continues to be phrase of mouth, regardless of podcast corporations’ finest efforts to vary that). Listed here are some recent pods for consideration.
- Vulture (which, like Sizzling Pod, is owned by Vox Media) has launched a brand new popular culture podcast hosted by longtime NPR host and reporter Sam Sanders. Into It debuted yesterday with an episode on Beyoncé’s empire and affect and can come out each Thursday.
- Slate podcast Decoder Ring, hosted by Willa Paskin, is again with a brand new season. My husband and I are diehard followers of this present and have already listened to the primary episode concerning the fast rise and gradual dying of malls. Folks shared their sentiments concerning the malls of their youth, which I don’t absolutely relate to as a result of my spot was the White Plains Bloomingdale’s (not in a mall), the place you bumped into everybody’s mother and received the juicy gossip.
- Stitcher has a brand new chat present hosted by comedians Leslie Jones and Lenny Marcus. The fckry (robust identify!) will launch on August eleventh, and you’ll try the trailer right here.
Have an awesome weekend. See you on the opposite aspect of this sticky weekend.
