Sony Music Entertainment launches new expanded podcast division with acquisition of Somethin'Else

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) announced today the acquisition of audio, TV and social media producer Somethin’ Else (SE), marking a major ramping up of SME’s in-house creative production capabilities and the creation of a newly expanded global podcast division.

Somethin’ Else Chief Content Officer and Vice Chairman Steve Ackerman (pictured above) and Somethin’ Else founder, Executive Chairman and CEO Jez Nelson will jointly spearhead SME’s global podcast content and business development strategy. Ackerman will become Executive Vice President, Co-Head Global Podcasts, overseeing operations in New York and Nelson will run the division’s UK-based podcast operations as Executive Vice President, Co-Head Global Podcasts. Both will report directly to SME’s Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business and U.S. Sales and Tom Mackay, President, Premium Content A&R.

Somethin’ Else’s TV and social media business will become an extension of SME UK’s 4th Floor Creative division, enhancing SME UK’s ability to facilitate creative and commercial opportunities for artists, labels and partners.

“Expanding our relationship with Somethin’ Else brings their best-in-class capabilities and production expertise fully into the Sony Music family,” said Kooker. “Our new global podcast division is key to our plans for a fast-paced expansion in the market, diversifying our creative abilities and providing a home for exciting content that will benefit millions of podcast-lovers around the world.”

“Having collaborated with Somethin’ Else on a number of hit podcasts, we know how impactful their work has been on shaping the marketplace”, added Mackay. “Under Steve and Jez’s leadership, we can now provide a range of expanded collaboration opportunities for the podcast community globally and focus on growing a robust slate of new in-house projects.”

“We’re delighted to be joining Sony Music at what feels like a critical moment in the growth and acceleration of the global podcast industry,” added Ackerman and Nelson. “Somethin’ Else is known as the leading premium podcasting production company in the UK and our ambition is to harness that drive and creativity to make Sony Music a global market leader. Sony Music is renowned for always putting the artists first in everything they do, and we’ve seen that culture fully embedded in their podcast offering too. That global expertise, artist first culture, and ability to cut through the noise has huge appeal to podcasting talent and we look forward to harnessing that in this new chapter of our business.”

SME and Somethin’ Else have collaborated on several hit podcasts since January 2020, including David Tennant Does A Podcast With…, Power: The Maxwells, The Fault Line: Bush, Blair & Iraq and their newest release Cheat!. With the acquisition, SME will leverage Somethin’ Else’s vast production experience and relationships in audio entertainment to continue developing chart-topping new podcasts across a range of genres, form new partnerships with talented creators, and push the entire global podcast industry forward.

Specializing in audio, entertainment, music and arts content, Somethin’ Else is the UK’s largest independent podcast and audio producer and the BBC’s biggest independent producer of programmes, covering a variety of music genres and flagship speech shows for the broadcaster. The company’s dedicated social media team creates high frequency, high engagement content for renowned brands and most recently, ran a social media campaign for the 2021 BRIT awards, delivering 1.7M viewers (a 60% increase y-o-y), with YouTube content on The BRITs channel accumulating a further 15M views in the 48 hours after the event. Somethin’ Else’s TV division is a multi BAFTA award winning production house working across documentaries, multi-part series and live music events.

About Somethin’ Else

Somethin’ Else is the UK’s largest independent podcast and audio producer releasing its own podcasts as well as shows for the BBC, Netflix, Audible, Spotify and within their joint global content partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. Its hit shows include David Tennant Does A Podcast With…, The Sun King with David Dimbleby, Power: The Maxwells, How Did We Get Here?, Something Rhymes With Purple, The Immaculate Deception and Unheard: The Fred and Rose West Tapes. In 2020, Somethin’ Else were awarded 'Best Network’ at the British Podcast Awards, with two of their podcasts also winning top awards. As well as audio, Somethin’ Else also houses significant social media and TV teams producing content for clients such as the BBC, Sky, The BRIT Awards, The Economist and Red Bull.

About Sony Music Podcasts

Sony Music Podcasts is a division of Sony Music Entertainment, a global leader in audio at the intersection of music, podcasting, entertainment and technology. Through our diverse global partnerships with leading creators and our team of sales, marketing and business development professionals, Sony Music Podcasts uses our core strengths to help the podcast community achieve greater levels of success. In alignment with our creator-first philosophy, we drive impactful storytelling through compelling content everywhere.

About 4^th Floor Creative

4th Floor Creative is Sony Music Entertainment UK’s in-house creative & strategy hub, launched in 2018 to unite Brand Partnerships, Sync, Visual Creative, Podcasting, Digital and Audience Development. Led by music industry powerhouse Cassandra Gracey, the London-based division works with Sony Music’s iconic labels — including Columbia, RCA, Commercial Group, Ministry of Sound, Black Butter, Relentless, Insanity — to orchestrate best-in-class activations and amplify artist and brand stories to connect with a global audience. 4th Floor Creative’s flagship projects include: LM5 The Tour Film; Mark Ronson’s ‘Pieces of Us (featuring King Princess)’, the world’s first interactive music video shot using Instagram’s Spark AR; the world’s first streaming-influenced merchandise collection for Bring Me The Horizon; Paloma Faith’s award-winning partnership with Skoda, and Production & Development of the Channel 4 music series in lockdown - Back to Mine.