📻🚫 “Goodnight, Sweet Prince!” SiriusXM Ditches Stitcher App in One Fell Swoop 🌩️

TL;DR; ⏩ SiriusXM, your friendly neighborhood satellite radio giant, is pulling the plug on its Stitcher podcast app and subscription service. The plan? To push more users to its own app and have all its content under one virtual roof 🏠💡. The Stitcher provided podcasts are not vanishing into thin air though; they’ll stay available on other platforms and on SiriusXM’s app. Any staff cut? No, thank God! 🙏 The shutdown date? August 29, mark your calendars, folks! 📆🚨

Are you a Stitcher fan? 🎧 Well, get ready for some podcast drama! SiriusXM, known to most as that satellite radio big-shot, is about to say “sayonara” to its Stitcher podcast app and subscription service. With a strategy straight out of “The Art of War,” SiriusXM is herding all its users to its very own app, effectively putting all their audio eggs in one digital basket 🧺🥚. The Stitcher podcasts are still standing though, albeit on other platforms and, of course, on the SiriusXM app. This move is set to happen on August 29, a date that will live in podcast infamy, or not, who knows? 🤷

“Is this a death knell for Stitcher?” 🎭 you might ask. Well, not quite. Stitcher Studios and Earwolf networks will keep on trucking, creating podcasts for the masses, while the Stitcher team won’t face any layoffs – pretty good news in the middle of a storm, right? 🌪️😅

But hold on to your hats, this ain’t a free ride. Stitcher’s subscription service used to cost a pretty penny, $4.99 a month to be precise 💸. Their app and website had a not-too-shabby 900,000 unique visitors, according to Comscore.

Let’s take a step back in time 🕰️. SiriusXM acquired Stitcher in 2020, splurging up to $325 million – that’s a lotta dough – making it one of the biggest podcast deals during the industry’s golden era. At the time, companies were throwing money around like confetti at a wedding, trying to beef up their podcast game. But has the honeymoon period ended? 😮💔

Remember when Spotify ended its podcast production deal with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s company, Archewell Audio? Or when Spotify laid off 200 people in its podcast division? Sure seems like the wild west days of podcast deals may be a thing of the past, as companies start to tread more carefully 🚧.

So what does this mean for you, the listeners, the podcast addicts out there? 🎧💔 Well, the Stitcher you knew and loved is changing, but hey, change is the only constant, right? The big question is, will you move over to SiriusXM’s app or will you find a new podcasting home? 🤔

Here’s a question for you, as we end this digital saga: Are the golden days of podcasting over, or are we just entering a new phase of industry maturity? 🎤🌅🔮