New York Times Buys Serial Productions

The New York Times Company has announced that it would acquire Serial Productions, the company that produces the innovative “Serial” podcast. In addition to the acquisition, The Times also announced that it had entered into an ongoing creative and strategic alliance with “This American Life” that will enable it to continue to collaborate on long-form audio stories with Serial Productions and to collaborate on marketing and advertising sales with The Times. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Serial Productions is a team of audio’s most popular and critically acclaimed long-form journalists and narrative storytellers led by Julie Snyder, Sarah Koenig and Neil Drumming. Each episode of “Serial’s” first season was downloaded 20 million times on average and is credited with igniting the current podcast boom. “This American Life” is the iconic, long-running, weekly public radio program, founded by host and executive producer Ira Glass.

Serial Productions is a team of audio’s most popular and critically acclaimed long-form journalists and narrative storytellers led by Julie Snyder, Sarah Koenig and Neil Drumming.

As a Times company, Serial Productions will commission and edit its own stories and they will now be amplified by The Times. The acquisition will allow the Serial team to tell more stories and produce more series than they had previously.

With “The Daily,” “Serial,” and the strategic alliance with “This American Life,” The Times has now brought together influential audio brands in the world. Along with other chart-topping shows and series, including “1619,” “Rabbit Hole” and “Caliphate,” as well as the recent acquisition of Audm, The Times will continue to build new listening habits across a range of formats. Creating a strong audio report aligns with the company’s broader goal to help audiences understand the world around them through journalistic storytelling.

As a legacy print journalism company, The New York Times has been successful at integrating print, digital, audio and video into a media brand that attracts multi-generational readers, listeners, viewers and subscribers.

The New York Times Book Review podcast is one of the oldest podcasts in the space and has attracted a loyal audience.

"The times has done an excellent job at using podcasting to enhance its print and digital divisions and not cannibalize its brands," says media consultant Rick Joseph.

In its press release, Meredith Kopit Levien, chief operating officer of The New York Times Company said, “We've seen the power that audio can have in building deeper connections with our audience and we're committed to bringing listeners the best audio journalism in the world. What better way to show that commitment than by acquiring ‘Serial,’ the most celebrated and innovative podcast series ever produced and by partnering with ‘This American Life,’ a program that quite simply transformed the genre. We launched ‘The Daily’ in 2017 and it has quickly become the most listened to news podcast in the country. Our goal is to continue to evolve our audio offerings and to chart a sustainable course for high-quality, immersive audio journalism.”

Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor who oversees Times audio said, “We have been enormous admirers of ‘This American Life’ and ‘Serial’ for years and their work has inspired and informed our own. We feel confident the ‘Serial’ and ‘This American Life’ teams share our desire to continue to find groundbreaking ways to tell stories, grow listenership and help more and more people better understand the world. They are as mission-driven as we are and we’re so excited to welcome them to The Times family.”

Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial Productions said, “We’re incredibly proud of ‘Serial’ and wanted to find a home where we felt shared values, one where we would be supported and resourced to tell more stories, of the highest quality. We’re thrilled to be joining The Times, where they have demonstrated a commitment to pursuing the possibilities of audio and long-form narrative journalism.”

Ira Glass said, “For years now, when people ask me to recommend a podcast, the first one I mention is ‘The Daily.’ Effusively. Gushingly. It’s so impressive, how The Times jumped into audio journalism, and made a show that uses the medium so well. I also love how ‘The Daily’ and the other Times podcasts are narrative journalism, like our show. They tell stories, with characters and feeling, and, of course, because they’re The Times, a lucid analysis of the world around us. I can’t imagine a better partner for the journalism we and ‘Serial’ do than The Times, and look forward to continuing to invent this still-young world of podcasting with them at our side.”

As Serial Productions joins The Times, the team plans to produce a number of shows and series under The Times and Serial Productions banner. The first, “Nice White Parents,” will bring listeners along with award-winning reporter Chana Joffe-Walt as she examines the role white families play in shaping public education. You can listen to the trailer tomorrow, with the first two episodes available on Thursday, July 30 on NYTimes.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

“This American Life” remains an independent company and will continue its weekly broadcasts on public radio and its podcast.

The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Mullin first drew attention to the possibility back in January, when he reported that Serial Productions was shopping around for a sale. The Times was the lone company cited as a potential buyer in that write-up. The possibility was raised again in a media column from the Times’ own Ben Smith, published in early March, which reported that the studio was for sale at a $75 million valuation, though it was expected to go for much less. Formally, though, actual details of the deal size were not disclosed at this time. Believe me, I asked.

This latest blockbuster deal comes amid a flurry of podcast acquisitions this year. In February, Spotify  bought Bill Simmons’ podcast-first digital media company The Ringer, in a deal reportedly valued up to $250 million. In May, the longtime celebrity-to-podcast pipeline facilitator PodcastOne was purchased by "music streaming platform"LiveXLive for $18 million in an all-stock deal. And earlier this month, Stitcher switched hands from Scripps to SiriusXM in a blockbuster deal valued at $320 million.




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