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Pandora picks up WTF with Marc Maron and other Stitcher podcasts as SiriusXM finalizes acquisition
Another place to get more podcasts
The podcasting arms race has ratcheted up another notch as satellite radio company SiriusXM has completed its acquisition of podcast production and advertising behemoth Stitcher from E.W. Scripps for $325 million. It's a big deal business-wise, but for listeners, it also means that Sirius's Pandora app is getting a cadre of top podcasts in its catalogue.
SiriusXM is buying podcasting platform Stitcher for $325 million
Sirius is serious about cementing its position in podcasting
SiriusXM is one of the most popular satellite radio services in the US. However, the growth of paid radio subscribers is falling as free offerings like podcasts find more popularity than ever before. In an effort to ride the wave, SiriusXM has announced its acquisition of Stitcher, a mainstay in the world of podcasting.
You've been able to listen to the radio via the Google Assistant for quite some time already — in fact, Home devices have supported TuneIn since launch. The company is now adding an option to integrate paid radio services such as SiriusXM to the Assistant by rolling out a dedicated radio section in the Assistant's Services tab.
SirusXM is best known as a broadcast provider for satellite radios in cars, but the company expanded its business to smartphones long ago and recently bought the streaming platform Pandora. Now SiriusXM has teamed up with Google to bring its lineup of radio stations to the Assistant across all of Google's devices. This should drastically expand the number of radio stations available on the company's smart home speakers.
SiriusXM users have been asking for Chromecast support for years, and at long last, their prayers have been answered. Unfortunately, the long-awaited functionality appears to have quite a few problems, with several Play Store reviews with complaints about it.
Pandora has largely been overshadowed by Spotify in the world of music streaming, but it's still alive and kicking. Back in August, Pandora Premium support was finally added to Google Assistant, and T-Mobile began giving customers a year of Pandora Plus. Now the company has been acquired in an all-stock transaction by SiriusXM, valued at approximately $3.5 billion.
For most people, using the SiriusXM Android app in their car is probably something of a corner-case. Many head units that support Android Auto are compatible with SiriusXM satellite radio tuners. But just in case you'd prefer to navigate by voice or get your music delivered via LTE rather than satellite, the SiriusXM app for Android now works with Android Auto.
SiriusXM is a satellite/internet radio company, which has offered an Android smartphone app since 2010. The company has also embraced Android's other form factors - a Google TV app is still live on the Play Store. An Android TV version is now widely available, with seemingly no announcement from the company.
This is a bit of perplexing news. Automatic, maker of car monitoring software and hardware, has just announced that it has sold itself to SiriusXM, subscription-based provider of satellite radio. The connection between the two companies' services might not make sense at first glance, but there is one.
The makers of SiriusXM's Android client, an Internet version of the notable satellite radio streams, seem to take positive delight in ignoring Android design guidelines. Before today, the app looked like a lazy port of the iOS version... and the iOS version wasn't exactly a looker to start with.
If you're a subscriber of SiriusXM and you love to customize what you hear, you should probably grab the latest update of the app, which now features MySXM. What's MySXM, you ask? It just so happens that we have collected a nice little Q&A from various places around Sirius' site that explains just that.
If you listen to SiriusXM on your Android device, the newest iteration of the application should be of interest. While the update brings the normal bug fixes and enhancements, it also packs two new useful features: access to On Demand radio and offline caching for select shows. iOS users saw this update back in early August, so it's good to see these features make their way to Android.