Deezer has acquired personalised online talk radio app company Stitcher.
The acquisition means Deezer now offers consumers over 35 million music tracks and 35,000 radio shows and podcasts. Stitcher currently carries content from over 12,000 content providers, including NPR, BBC, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, This American Life, Marc Maron, CBS Radio News and others.
Streaming talk content continues to grow in the US, with approximately 39 million Americans having listened to an audio podcast in the past month and 30 percent of Americans having listened to a podcast according to Edison Research.
“Almost every music listener listens to some form of talk radio, whether it is news, entertainment or sports,” said Daniel Marhely, Founder of Deezer.
“We see the ability to deliver better talk streaming solutions in the same way that we are doing in music to super serve the needs of our global audience of 16 million users and growing. The acquisition of Stitcher helps us realize this opportunity.”
Deezer will further expand its distribution into the automotive entertainment market where Stitcher is already enabled in more than 50 models, including BMW, Ford, General Motors, Jaguar and Mazda vehicles and was an Apple CarPlay and Android Auto launch partner.
“Deezer has become a market leader by meeting the different and unmet needs of music consumers around the world,” said Noah Shanok, Chief Executive Officer of Stitcher. “We look forward to continue to evolve our leading offerings and deliver the most complete and best digital audio experience for listeners everywhere.”
Deezer will continue to support Stitcher’s award winning mobile products, where Stitcher has the number one rated podcast app on Android and the second most popular app on iOS behind iTunes.Music Business Worldwide
