Podcast News Bites: Red Seat Ventures, 841 Stories, iHeart, Auddia, Triton Digital, CBC.
... Red Seat Ventures has hired Craig Reilly as VP of Sales. “Craig brings more than 20 years of sales experience to RSV, and joins us at an exciting moment as we continue to grow our revenue partnerships with the biggest and best creators,” the company says in the announcement. Reilly most recently spent 11 years Senior Director of Sales-East for SiriusXM. He earlier had sales roles at Fox Sports and worked at ad agencies McCann Erickson and Ogilvy & Mather.
... There is love in the air as romance publisher 831 Stories teams up with iHeartPodcasts. The production marriage is producing a weekly romance chat-show series. Debuting next week, “Radio 831” will offer romance fans a weekly half-hour hit of all things happening in the wide world of romance. Hosts and romance influencers Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall will discuss new books, screen-adaptation dramas, and the genre’s countless intersections with internet discourse and celebrity culture. Debuting May 7, new episodes will be released each Thursday.
... Auddia, the company behind the podcast and radio listening app Faidr, said Wednesday that it has completed a $12 million financing deal that will help speed up its planned merger with Thramann Holdings to create McCarthy Finney, an artificial intelligence-focused holding company. Auddia says the financing will support the remaining steps needed to complete the merger, including filing a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and scheduling a shareholder vote.
... Triton Digital says CBC/Radio-Canada held onto the top spot among the top sales networks in Canada in March. It had an average of 2.4 million weekly downloads during March, up from 2.2 million a month earlier. Audioboom ranked second with 1.5 million average weekly downloads, on par with February, while the BBC ranked third with 662,000, up from 613,000 in the prior month. The top Canadian homegrown podcast remained “Front Burner” from public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada. The top French-language podcast remained Cogeco Media’s “La revue de presse de Paul Arcand.” See the full March rankings HERE.
