Audacy is closing down its Pineapple Street podcast studio and largely leaving the business of producing podcasts for third-party brands.
Less than 30 jobs are impacted by this move, a person familiar with the matter tells The Hollywood Reporter. 28 employees are listed as staff on the company’s website. Audacy will continue to produce and distribute its in-house podcasts which include We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade and will also continue to distribute podcasts for third-parties.
But the move means the company is stepping away from branded production — Pineapple had primarily worked with partners such as HBO, Apple TV+, Netflix and Spotify on series including the official Hacks podcast and Severance podcast — and focusing more on its owned and operated portfolio of podcasts.
“This difficult decision aligns our resources with our core strengths and the most promising growth areas for our podcasting business. We’re sorry to say goodbye to talented colleagues and are grateful for their contributions,” Audacy said in a statement.
The move comes as Audacy is under new management, with Kelli Turner being appointed president and CEO of Audacy in March, after the longtime CEO stepped down in January, in addition to a new chief business officer, a new chief revenue officer and the departure of several other members of the leadership team.
The company also conducted layoffs said to impact hundreds of employees in March.
Audacy emerged from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2024 and in September 2024 became a private company with a restructured balance sheet that reduced its debt load. As part of that process, Audacy had to approve the transfer of its radio licenses over to a nonprofit group funded by George Soros.
In March 2024, the company had reorganized its podcast division under the branding of Audacy Podcasts and in doing so, sunsetted the brand names of Cadence13, the podcast studio which is home to We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle and Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade and 2400Sports. At that time, Pineapple Street Studios retained its branding and moved under the Audacy Podcasts umbrella.
There had also been previous layoffs at Pineapple Studios in January 2024, which the company attributed to reduced marketing budgets, as well a reduced demand for high-cost, limited run narrative series. The podcasts at Pineapple Street included show-specific podcasts, such as The Last of Us podcast and Interview with a Vampire podcast.
