Schwartz Media to sell 7am podcast
Schwartz Media has entered into an agreement with Solstice Media to sell its successful daily news podcast, 7am.
Solstice Media, which owns The New Daily and InDaily among other magazines and lifestyle sites, will formally take ownership on July 1, with the intention of continuing with its current team and format.
The sale comes despite 7am’s success for Schwartz Media, which include a major win at the 2024 Australian Podcast Awards. The show has in the past been ranked the most popular news podcast in Australia, but over the past four years has seen its monthly audience decline. While numbers stabilised over the past year, the Australian Podcast Ranker indicates monthly listeners have declined over 30% from 2023.
It is currently ranked at 18 across all podcasts, with around 900,000 monthly downloads and around 290,000 monthly listeners.
Erik Jensen, CEO and editor-in-chief at Schwartz Media, said the sale will allow the independent publisher to focus on its other titles The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It is also the publisher of Australian Foreign Affairs.
He said the 7am podcast has “set the standard for audio journalism, telling stories with depth and sensitivity”.
“Solstice Media is the perfect buyer and I look forward to seeing 7am thrive under its new ownership,” Jensen said.
Solstice Media’s managing director, Paul Hamra, said the digital publisher had been looking to add “respected journalism projects” to its product mix. Audio was a “logical next offering”.
“7am is the right fit. We are excited to keep developing 7am into Australia’s leading daily news podcast,” he said.
Nova Entertainment will continue to represent the 7am podcast for advertising sales.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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