Stitcher, a company that creates personalized talk radio streams out of shows from providers such as NPR, PRI and the BBC, is bringing audio content to mobile devices and cars, and along the way introduce listeners to new shows. The company, which bills itself as a Pandora for news and talk radio, has just raised a $6 million Series B round led by Benchmark Capital and including New Atlantic Ventures, Ed Scott and Ron Conway.
Stitcher helps listeners subscribe to some of their favorite radio shows (there are about 1,000 to choose from, though not all the shows’ archives are in the system). Recent episodes of these shows get stitched together into streams (with advertising in between).
“The streams are generally oriented towards fresh and newsy content, and they also mix in some programs that you may not have explicitly chosen but Stitcher thinks you may like,” reports Gigaom.com.
The company already has an arrangement with Ford to use its Sync to get inside cars that was announced at CES this year. Stitcher CEO Noah Shanok said in an interview that cars are “the ultimate destination for us,” and that he hopes to sign more such deals soon. Stitcher is already available as an app on the major mobile platforms.
