New York, NY – Today, four of the top podcast producers – NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life – announced the acquisition of Pocket Casts, a leading podcast app. This collaboration furthers public radio's leading role as an innovator in audio discovery and distribution, while ensuring the continued support and growth of one of the most popular listening platforms on the market.įour of the top podcast producers unite to own and operate a platform to improve podcasts discovery experience for listeners and to connect producers with new audiencesįormer iHeartRadio General Manager Owen Grover named CEO of Pocket Casts NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life Acquire Pocket Casts Financial details for the purchase weren't mentioned, and Pocket Casts' existing staff and developers will remain in place. NPR affirmed in its press release that users of the app will continue to enjoy many of the features they previously did, and the new app won't serve as a replacement for NPR's existing NPR One or NPR apps. They want what’s best for the podcasting space, they want to build open systems that everyone can use." NPR and co seem to have made the right promises, though, with Ivanovich saying, "the unique thing about this opportunity is the mission driven nature of these organizations. The developers have received other offers for a buy-out in the past but turned them down. According to a statement received by The Verge, Ivanovic is optimistic about the purchase. Pocket Casts founders Philip Simpson and Russel Ivanovic will hang around in currently undefined leadership roles. Owen Grover is pegged to be the CEO of Pocket Casts going forward, having previously served as a high-level executive at iHeartRadio and Clear Channel.
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