Entercom Acquires Pineapple Street, Cadence13
Entercom was very busy today in the podcasting space today, as evidenced by the announcement that it has acquired Pineapple Street Media, an award-winning, independent producer of top-rated podcast content, and reached an agreement in principle to acquire Cadence13, an industry leader in podcast creation and distribution, to create a powerhouse podcast division under RADIO.COM.
Through the strategic acquisitions of Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Media, Entercom will become one of the country’s top three podcasters and a leading creator, distributor and seller of top-rated podcast content. Entercom will now operate a portfolio of top-rated podcasts, including Pineapple Street Media’s The Clearing, which recently launched as the No. 1 podcast on the Apple Charts. The network will also include over half of the titles named to Apple’s “10 Best So Far” podcast list in 2019, including Root of Evil, Against the Rules, To Live & Die in L.A., Missing Richard Simmons, Running from COPS, Gangster Capitalism and Billy Balls, to name a few.
As part of these acquisitions, Pineapple Street Media will become Pineapple Street Studios, a division of RADIO.COM. Pineapple Street co-founders Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky will join the new company as co-heads of this division, reporting to J.D. Crowley, Chief Digital Officer, Entercom. Cadence13 will also become a wholly owned subsidiary of Entercom, and a division of RADIO.COM. Cadence13 CEO Spencer Brown will serve as head of the division, reporting to J.D. Crowley. Cadence13 Chief Content Officer Chris Corcoran and President John Murphy will also be part of the leadership team.
“Today marks another transformational event at Entercom and we are thrilled to welcome the outstanding teams and content partners at both Pineapple Street and Cadence13,” said David Field (left),Chairman, President, and CEO, Entercom. “With these important acquisitions, Entercom will stand as a unique leader in the audio universe with both the greatest collection of premium, original local audio content along with arguably the best national podcast content. With RADIO.COM emerging as the fastest growing digital audio app in the country and Entercom Advanced Audio bringing to market a burgeoning set of data, analytics and attribution capabilities, we are well positioned to participate in the exciting audio renaissance and the powerful opportunities to work with our thousands of customers across the country on their increasingly important audio strategies.” Telos Advisors served as exclusive financial advisor to Pineapple Street Media in this transaction.