Apple, Sony Reportedly Eyeing $300-$400 Million Acquisition Of Podcast Network Wondery

https://www.tubefilter.com/2020/11/09/apple-sony-podcast-acquisition-wondery/

Podcast network Wondery is reportedly courting potential buyers—and has set a price tag of $300-$400 million.

Apple, Sony, and two other companies have had talks with Wondery, and negotiations are ongoing, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. They didn’t identify the other two companies, but did specify that Spotify is not among them; the audio streaming giant has chosen not to bid, they said.

Wondery was founded in 2016 by former Fox executive Hernan Lopez. It has become known for producing true-crime hits like Dirty John, about the life and death of John Meehan, and Dr. Death, about infamous neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch. Dirty John was adapted for TV by Bravo in 2018, and at least five more Wondery originals have been optioned for adaptation by Universal, WarnerMedia, and FX.

The company has around 8 million active listeners per month, according to analytics firm Podtrac. (For comparison, Spotify has 144 paying subscribers, and says 22% of them—around 31.7 million—listen to podcasts at least once per month.) Currently, Wondery listeners don’t pay anything, but it’s in the process of developing a “Wondery+” subscription tier.

If an acquiring business were to pay $400 million, the deal would be one of the podcast industry’s priciest yet. Other big deals include Spotify’s 2018 acquisition of Gimlet and Anchor (for around $230 million each) and its February buy of The Ringer ($200 million, reportedly), plus Sirius XM’s $325 million bid for Stitcher that closed last month.

Wondery has raised $15 million from venture-capital investors, and during its latest round was valued at over $100 million.

By James Hale • 11/09/2020 •

Apple to acquire Sony?

Eugene Huo

October 28, 2010

1050

Friends, Family Business

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Sony stock surged on Tuesday, fuelled by speculation that Apple could buy Sony with its $51 billion reserve. The source of this rumor? During last week’s earnings report, CEO Steve Jobs was asked what the company planned to do with the large amount of cash it had on hand. Steve hinted that there might be an acquisition upcoming: “We would like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future,” he said. Eric Savitz writing in Barron’s mentioned Adobe, Sony, or possibly Disney as acquisition targets.

Sony and Apple also came up in discussion the week before in Bloomberg’s piece on Apple, when former CEO John Sculley revealed that Steve Jobs wanted Apple to be more like Sony and less like Microsoft.

Analysts were skeptical of the possible deal, saying that any potential acquisition of Sony would be a hostile takeover, and that Sony wouldn’t willingly allow itself to be bought.

What would Apple do with Sony? Recent acquisitions by Apple have been of small companies, and mainly have been for their technology or their ideas. There was LaLa, the digital music service; Intrinsity, the chip manufacturer; remember Siri, the amazing voice recognition search app?; and Quattro Wireless, the mobile ad company.

But Sony? That’s a giant behemoth compared to these companies.

Would Apple retool all of Sony’s manufacturing lines to make MacBook Airs? Start making Apple PlayStations? Kill off the PSP? Apple TV sets, minus the Google TV integration? Revive the Walkman brand?

I’m not sure that Apple wants to be like anybody anymore. They are good at being who they are, and it’s unclear how taking over a company like Sony would help them be better at being Apple.

Article Via AppleInsider