Scandi Podcasting Outfit PodX Swoops For ‘Love Island: The Morning After’ and ‘The Gemma Collins Podcast’ Producer

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Scandi podcasting outfit PodX has deepened its push into the UK market with the acquisition of a majority stake in Love Island: The Morning After and The Gemma Collins Podcast maker Listen.

Listen becomes the seventh company and second from the UK to join PodX’s growing empire in the space of just a year. Listen was launched four years ago by three former Wisebuddah execs and has since forged a wealth of podcasts for the likes of the BBC, Audible and Spotify including Love Island: The Morning After, The Gemma Collins Podcast, 28ish Days Later and Levi Roots’ Flavours of Home.

In the past 12 months alone, the 26-staff outfit says it has produced more than 3,500 hours of content. Deal terms were undisclosed but Listen said the acquisition is the “most significant in the UK industry since Sony’s purchase of Somethin’ Else in June 2021,” which took the largest independent UK podcast producer at the time off the market.

Although it doesn’t publicly report revenues, Listen Managing Director Josh Adley said his podcast business has grown turnover by more than 250% since launch while it has been “at the forefront of the industry’s move into video and social.” “The beating heart of Listen is our obsession with producing premium content and a desire to move at pace and stay ahead of change,” he added. “We know there is a huge opportunity for us internationally and this is precisely what PodX can support us with.” Listen will join PodX immediately and Adley will stay on for day-to-day running with Director of Content Darby Dorras and Executive Director Tim Hammond.