Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, has signed an agreement to acquire Podchaser, the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative podcast database.
The planned acquisition brings together two champions of the open podcast ecosystem, strengthening and underlining Acast’s commitment to ensuring podcasts are accessible across all platforms.
Alongside Acast’s existing podcaster monetization capabilities, the deep integration of Podchaser and its data will deliver the industry’s richest set of authoritative, structured metadata. The two companies will also work to broaden and better this information, improving podcast data for the whole industry.
Podchaser, which will continue to operate as a separate brand and independent business, was founded in 2016 and is home to the leading global podcast database, covering more than 4.5 million podcasts and more than 1.7 billion data points — including hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, and the advertisers of the world’s top 5,000 podcasts.
This unique, proprietary data — which will also remain open to all — spans and powers the entire open podcast ecosystem, and is used by listeners, podcasters, advertisers and industry professionals.
Crucially, Podchaser is all about discoverability — the ease with which listeners can find new podcasts to enjoy, and advertisers can find new shows to align with — solving one of podcasting’s toughest problems, and something vital to the continued growth of the whole industry.
Through verified listener and podcaster contributions, Podchaser’s database makes it easy for listeners to discover new podcasts and find information about existing ones — across all listening apps — as well as providing trustworthy, transparent data for advertisers and marketing professionals to more efficiently find and reach engaged podcast audiences. In turn, this increased visibility helps creators grow their shows and make more money.
Once integrated, this combination of Podchaser and Acast will push forward innovation, elevating discoverability for all in the industry and providing an even better resource for listeners, advertisers and partners.
The acquisition of Podchaser follows a number of high-profile recent announcements from Acast, including its integration with Facebook owner Meta and podcast giant Marc Maron joining the Acast Creator Network.
Ross Adams, Acast’s CEO, said: “As true champions of open podcasting, Acast and Podchaser combined will accelerate the innovation and democratization of the podcasting ecosystem for podcasters, listeners and advertisers everywhere. Together we will unlock the vast opportunity that we know exists for open podcasting to not just have parity with the data held by closed, paywalled platforms, but to leap forward and surpass them.”
Bradley Davis, CEO at Podchaser, commented: “Podchaser and Acast have a shared ethos around supercharging the open podcast ecosystem and creating the best tools possible for listeners, podcasters, and advertisers. It’s this conviction, coupled with Acast’s relentless execution, that makes it the perfect home for Podchaser’s continued mission.”
