SiriusXM Near Deal To Acquire Scripps’ Stitcher Podcast Division: Report
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Sirius XM Holdings, which said last month that it planned to raise $1 billion in a private debt offering, is reportedly near a deal to acquire E.W. Scripps’ Stitcher podcast division for $300 million.
The news, reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal which cited sources, comes amid a flurry of deals in the growing podcast space. Spotify, for example, recently flexed it muscles by acquired The Ringer and Gimlet.
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Satellite radio biggie SiriusXM, owned by John Malone’s Liberty Media, is no stranger to big deals, acquiring streaming giant Pandora in late 2018 for $3.5 billion. More recently, in February it took a $75 million stake in SoundCloud.
In June, it said it believed the private debt offering would give it sufficient cash and cash equivalents, as well as debt capacity, to cover short-term and long-term funding needs, including amounts to construct, launch and insure replacement satellites and “strategic opportunities.”
The Stitcher platform includes the comedy podcast network Earwolf. Scripps had acquired Stitcher for $4.5M in 2016 and combined it with its Midroll division. Its original series include “Wolverine: The Long Night,” “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” Bill Nye’s “Science Rules!”, “Gossip,” “LeVar Burton Reads” and more.
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