MarketWatch tells us SiriusXM (which means Pandora) is going to spend $265 million in cash to buy E. W. Scripps (which means Stitcher). Pandora will kick in up to $60 million of additional payments if Stitcher can achieve certain financial goals in 2020 and 2021.

The Verge tells us the deal is for all the podcasting bits of the company: Stitcher, the podcast listening app and directory; Stitcher, the podcast network, which has some exclusive content and some windowed shows, which is content that comes out first exclusively on Stitcher and then days and or weeks later everywhere else; and Earwolf, the production arm of the network that makes some rather big and popular podcasts; and Midroll, the podcast advertising service. 

On the surface, this seems like a pretty obvious play to maintain parity with their bitter rival Spotify. But to me, it seems a bit disjointed.

Finances are problematic. E. W. Scripps’ (parent company to Stitcher) share price is struggling this year, according to MarketWatch, with a drop of 43% this year. SiriusXM’s market performance isn’t much better, with a stock value down 20% thus far in 2020. 

And there’s a lot of overlap. Pandora already has their own advertising company and ad tech in AdsWhizz. And Stitcher’s Midroll all but lost their identity in 2018 under a Stitcher-first branding redux in 2018.  Earwolf is Stitcher’s production company making high-quality content. But Pandora also has original podcasts and exclusive deals, much as they announced in partnership with Marvel in 2019. 

Leaving those unknowns aside, this acquisition is good news for all of us. Even with the uncertainty of the economy right now, it still shows podcasting is worthy of large investments and acquisitions. Even better: If SiriusXM takes a similar approach taken by iHeartRadio and starts using their remnant advertising inventory to drive listeners to and awareness of podcasts in their app, all podcasters win. Assuming your shows are listed on Pandora, obviously. Hopefully, this new acquisition will mean the approval process of six weeks or more shrinks to a realistic number. But we’ll see.

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