Companies to Co-Produce Original Podcasts; OZY’s hit Podcast ‘The Thread’ to Join the iHeartRadio Podcast Network

NEW YORK (June XX, 2018)— iHeartMedia and OZY Media today announced a creative multiyear partnership leveraging OZY Media’s compelling news and storytelling capabilities and iHeartMedia’s national cross-platform network to reach hundreds of millions of consumers across the country.

Beginning today, OZY stories on a range of topics from politics, to culture to technology to sports, will be featured in iHeartMedia’s top-rated morning shows across 150 markets in the U.S. The new partnership also includes promotion across iHeartMedia’s multiplatform network including radio, digital, social and live events.

“We are impressed with OZY’s rapid growth, diverse content and versatility across platforms, especially in today’s competitive media landscape,” said Joe Robinson, President of Ventures for iHeartMedia. “We are excited to partner with OZY, and with our massive reach of a quarter of a billion listeners a month across the country, this partnership gives us the opportunity to share even more critical news and information with our diverse audience.”

iHeartMedia and OZY will work together to co-produce iHeartRadio Original podcasts and develop shared revenue opportunities for advertisers. iHeartMedia is the largest publisher of podcasts in the country and the iHeartRadio Podcast Network has more than 630 original shows available to listeners nationwide.

In addition, OZY Media’s hit podcast series “The Thread,” which takes listeners through nearly a century of great American stories, will join iHeartRadio, the free all-in-one digital music, podcast, on demand and live radio streaming service – which is available across more than 250 device platforms including in-car, in-home, on wearables, across gaming consoles and more.  

“OZY wants to be everywhere you are, so what better company to partner with then iHeartMedia which reaches more than 90 percent of Americans a month” said Carlos Watson, co-founder and CEO of OZY Media. “We’re proud to bring the best of OZY to iHeart listeners, and hope they will be surprised, delighted, and enlightened by this offering, and what’s to come.”

OZY Media recently announced their third primetime television series with PBS, Breaking Big, profiling 12 celebrities and influencers and telling the stories of how they “broke big.”  The series premieres on Friday, June 15^th at 8:30pm ET.

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About OZY Media

With 40 million monthly unique users and 4 million subscribers, OZY brings readers “the new and the next,” offering 100 percent original content with a focus on the future, via unique OZY News, OZY Magazine, OZY TV and OZY Events products. Called “the new media magnet for the news hungry” by Fortune magazine, OZY’s in-depth and high-quality journalism has attracted a number of high-profile media partners including The New York Times, NPR, PBS NewsHour, TED, The Financial Times, The Huffington Post and many more, as well as guest editors including Bill Gates, President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Founded in 2013 by Emmy Award–winning journalist Carlos Watson and co-founder Samir Rao, the OZY team is based in Mountain View, California, and backed by leading Silicon Valley investors including Laurene Powell Jobs, Ron Conway, David Drummond, Larry Sonsini and Dan Rosensweig and a significant investment from publishing giant Axel Springer.