Whooshkaa partners with US podcaster Wondery

US podcast-maker Wondery – producer of the acclaimed Dirty John series – has chosen Australian-based Whooshkaa to represent it in the Australia-Pacific region.

The deal opens up dozens of Wondery podcasts to Australian advertising content through the fast-growing Whooshkaa platform.

“We have a lot of synergies with Whooshkaa,” said Wondery Founder and CEO Hernan Lopez, who left his role as CEO of Fox International Channels to launch the story-telling start-up in 2016. “Like us, Whooshkaa is developing a strong line-up of quality podcasts and facilitating a marketplace of advertisers and creators. Both Wondery and Whooshkaa launched in 2016. We’re bullish about this industry. Podcasting is just getting started and there’s so much white space to grow into.”

Dirty John, launched last October with the LA Times newspaper and written by veteran journalist Chris Goffard, (main pic) ranked at the top of the Apple Podcasts chart for 31 days straight, drawing more than 31 million listeners. It is currently being made into a TV series starring Australian actor Eric Bana. Wondery, a podcast creator and curator, reaches more than four million unique listeners each month with shows such as Young Charlie, The Fall of Rome, Business Wars, Sword and Scale, Talking Tech, Accused and dozens more.

Wondery’s latest true-crime hit, Felonious Florida, debuted at No 1 on the Apple podcast charts this month with half a million listens.

Whooshkaa Founder and CEO Robert Loewenthal (left) said he was delighted to represent Wondery in Australia and the Pacific.

“This will allow Australian listeners to hear targeted Australian content in the advertising space on Wondery podcasts, and allow Australian advertisers to reach even more local podcast listeners,” Mr Loewenthal said. “We are proud to add Wondery’s impressive stable of podcasts to Whooshkaa’s growing list, which includes podcasts from the Australian Radio Network, News Corp, Fairfax, the Sports Entertainment Network, the NRL and many more.”

New figures from Edison Research show 44% of Americans, or 124 million people, have listened to podcasts. Some 80% listen to all or most of each episode and growing numbers listen monthly (26%, up from 24%) and weekly (17%, up from 15%). Listeners are loyal, affluent and educated, with a higher proportion than the general population having tertiary degrees and higher than average incomes.