In May 2018, Pocket Casts was acquired by NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago and This American Life. This consortium of “biggest podcast producers” is now looking to sell Android, iOS and web applications.
First reported by Current last week, NPR’s latest financial report reveals how the owners “met and agreed to sell Pocket Casts, Podcast Media’s only asset” last month. Currently, the “sale plan is still under development”, but the divestment is expected to be completed in September 2021. NPR, which owns just over a third of Podcast Media, reported that its stake lost $ 812,129 in the year past.
The application was originally purchased for “[further] the leadership role of public radio 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. “
Meanwhile, the original Pocket Casts developers agreed to the agreement, which they considered a partnership, given the shared vision between them and the new owners:
In the future, things will be different. We will be moving faster, we will be more ambitious in the things we do, and we will have some incredible insights from the world’s largest podcast producers to help guide our future steps.
Pocket Casts Development Team, 2018
Since then, Pocket Casts has undergone two major changes. The first was a reworking of the material theme that came out of the beta version in March 2019, after four months of testing. Some users criticized this redesign due to conceptual changes in how the application worked.
Six months later, the app was free after costing $ 3.99, while a $ 9.99 / year Pocket Casts Plus level was introduced for accessing desktop applications (Mac, Windows and web), support for Apple Watch , plus themes / icons and cloud storage to upload your own content.
This sale of Pocket Casts occurs when Google, Apple, Spotify and Amazon are making major investments in the podcasting space. The last three companies have or say they are working on paid subscription offers. We contacted Pocket Casts to find out what this sale will represent to end users.
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