Deezer sells Stitcher less than two years after purchasing it

Podcast app/directory Stitcher is changing hands again, as this time Deezer is selling it to the E.W. Scripps company. That comes just 591 days after Deezer bought Stitcher in the first place, seeking to pair podcasts with its music library and a few months after the podcast app suffered a prolonged outage. According to Scripps, Stitcher has 8.5 million registered users and is installed on 50 models of cars, however it did not reveal how many of those users are active. Apparently it's enough to justify a $4.5 million purchase price a Wall Street Journal source described as a small acquihire, and the Stitcher team will join Midroll Media, a podcast producer and advertising network.

If you use the app, nothing will be changing immediately, and Deezer sent an email to podcasts saying their content will continue to be available on its platform too. Since Deezer made its purchase, Google Play Music and Spotify have both dived into podcasts, SoundCloud added paid offline listening and Apple's iTunes has... not done much except continued to be the largest overall platform. Stitcher says that the new owner should help advertisers and content partners with "an expanded portfolio of opportunities to help you reach the audiences you're seeking" but we'll have to wait and find out exactly what that includes.