Industry News

Audacy Reorganizes Podcast Units

According to a piece in The Hollywood Reporter, Audacy is consolidating its podcast segment by doing away with the Cadence13 and 2400Sports brands for the production units and will rebrand them asim Audacy Podcasts. The story notes that there are no staff reductions as a result of this. The goal of the change is to “streamline the brands for advertisers and to put a further emphasis on the Audacy brand.” The story also says that “Pineapple Street Studios, which primarily works with third-party partners such as HBO, Netflix and Spotify, will retain its branding as it moves under the Audacy Podcasts umbrella.” See the Hollywood Reporter story here.

Industry News

WGAE Responds to Audacy’s Pineapple Street Layoffs

The union that represents writes at Audacy-owned podcast division Pineapple Street Studios is denouncing the company’s decision to eliminate a dozen positions. Writers Guild of America East says, “The Pineapple Street Union is devastated by yesterday’s layoffs, which impacted 12 talented colleagues — 11 of them within our union. This comes just six months after the company laid off threeim other members of our unit. First and foremost, we denounce layoffs in their entirety; we believe this form of ‘cost cutting’ is fundamentally avoidable, and we don’t think innocent, hardworking staff should ever lose their livelihoods over mismanagement at the highest levels of a company. As previously reported, our parent company, Audacy, filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of this year after racking up $1.9 billion in debt. This same company also gave out at least $3.2 million in executive bonuses just months prior… Today, our union began the bargaining process where we will be fighting for the severance that our colleagues deserve — compensation that honors the immense time, skill, and creativity that each of them dedicated to the company over the years.”

Industry News

Audacy Names Two to Leadership Roles at Pineapple Street Studios

Audacy announces a new leadership team at is podcast unit Pineapple Street Studios as it promotes head of operations Bari Finkel and executive producer Je-Anne Berry to co-heads of the studio, reporting to Jennaim Weiss-Berman, Audacy’s EVP of podcasts. Also, Pineapple Street co-founder Max Linsky is been named senior podcast strategist for Audacy’s podcast division. In this imrole, he will continue to executive produce projects, as well as collaborate on podcast strategy for the company overall, advise Finkel and Berry in their new roles and work closely with key partners. Linsky says, “As everyone who has worked with Bari or Je-Anne knows, they are the perfect team for this job. Bari has been here since day one, and Je-Anne joined once we were part of Audacy — the combination of those two vantage points, plus the shared vision for where podcasting is headed, makes me just so excited for this next era.”

Industry News

Jenna Weiss-Berman Rises to EVP of Podcasts for Audacy

Audacy promotes Jenna Weiss-Berman to EVP of Podcasts, taking over for Chris Corcoran, who leaves the company to pursue other opportunities. In this role, Weiss-Berman will oversee Audacy’s podcast network and studios, including Pineapple Street Studios and Cadence13, along with strategy and development of new podcast content and distribution partnerships. She will also collaborate with programming leadership in sports and news in the growth and development of new original podcast content for podcast studio 2400Sports and across Audacy’s 28 local newsrooms in top U.S. markets. Audacy chief digital officer and president, podcast and streaming J.D. Crowley says, “As we commit to accelerating our digital growth and enhancing performance, we’re thrilled to expand Jenna’s role to further unify and streamline our content and business efforts across our leading podcast portfolio, enabling even more rapid development of new and original IP and better leveraging our talent across the entire Audacy portfolio. Jenna’s strong leadership and deep industry relationships will propel us forward on our mission to be a leading partner of audio creators, while super-serving listeners of all backgrounds and interests and enabling our sales teams to better serve our customers and partners with unique and compelling podcast opportunities.”

Industry News

Audacy Announces New Season of “Back Issue”

Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios announces the debut of the third season of “Back Issue,” the award-winning, original series hosted by Pineapple Street Studios senior producer Josh Gwynn in which heTracy Clayton - Podcast “reminisces on formative moments in pop culture’s past that have shaped our present, rewinding on the things forgotten or things we can’t seem to ever forget with personal reflections, incredible guests, and plenty of deep belly laughs.” He adds, “I’m so excited that this season, we’re going to be able to get into all sorts of formative pop culture moments because we’re bringing on guests to expand the range of things we cover.”