Soros fund is building an audio empire

George Soros thinks it’s good business, and perhaps good politics, to be in your ears.

Over the last two years, Soros Fund Management, the firm founded by the billionaire investor and now controlled by the Open Society Foundations, has become an increasingly key player in the oldest electronic mass media: radio.

In February, the company became the largest shareholder in Audacy, the bankrupt second-largest radio company in the U.S., with more than 230 U.S. stations and a podcast arm that includes Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studios. In 2022, Soros invested an undisclosed amount in Crooked Media, the liberal podcast network behind the ultra-popular Pod Save America. And a Soros-backed firm played a crucial role in Univision’s $60 million sale in 2022 of 18 Hispanic radio stations to a new firm run by veterans of Democratic politics. The deal, which included conservative Cuban powerhouse broadcasters in Miami, drew opposition from Republican members of Congress.

The move into the troubled radio business could be the beginning of a bigger audio buying spree, three people who have been involved in discussions with Soros executives said.

The fund has also privately discussed acquiring other major radio companies, such as the limping, publicly traded Cumulus Media. (Regulations limiting ownership of radio stations put limits on such mergers.)

The fund’s lead media investor, Michael Del Nin, met with a number of major figures in digital media and audio over the last year, including the podcast company Project Brazen. It has also eyed several potential companies for acquisition, including Pushkin Industries, the podcast company from Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, and Lemonada, the network best known for its interview show hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people familiar with the conversations said. Another podcast industry insider told Semafor that Lemonada is in the midst of a formal process to find a buyer, but that some potential suitors have balked at its high asking price.

The Soros fund’s unusual structure — a legendary private firm owned by a vast and politically powerful nonprofit — creates a kind of investment Venn diagram: Soros typically invests in media both to profit and to further what he sees as the democratic values of an open society, one that has put him deeply at odds with a generation of figures on the right, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban to Tucker Carlson.

Still, in private and public conversations, Soros Fund Management has cast its strategy as purely financial: It bought Audacy out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with an eye to an investment win through careful management of the struggling company’s debt. The investment in Crooked backs Soros’ liberal agenda, but it’s also a bet on the future of audio through the growing podcast industry.

A spokesperson for Soros Fund Management declined to comment. A spokesperson for Crooked Media directed Semafor to a 2022 piece in Variety about the investment, which noted that Soros Fund Management could fund the company’s acquisition of complementary businesses. Pushkin also declined to comment.

There’s a solid business case for Soros’ push into audio. While the radio industry declines and podcast advertising stalls out, the audience for audio remains strong. Nearly a third of all media consumption is audio, and the majority of in-car listeners are still tuning into radio. Listeners tend to pay more attention to ads and have more trust in the advertiser in audio than in other formats.

But Soros’ media moves could have an impact on this year’s elections. Where conservative-backed companies dominate local television and have subtle but notable influence over the tone of their content, Soros’ ownership could also prove pivotal. How, for example, would the fund react if the radio hosts on conservative stations, such as Philadelphia’s 1210 WPHT, second-guess valid electoral results come November?

A spokesperson for Soros Fund Management did not respond to an inquiry posing that question. A person familiar with the company’s thinking told Semafor that it is generally annoyed by coverage of the fund that casts its moves in a political light, noting in particular that the vast majority of Audacy stations are dedicated to sports and music, not news programming.

Whether ideology plays any role, Soros is following a format that Democratic communications officials have laid out for big-money donors to help bolster their agenda.

As Semafor reported, Democratic digital and communications strategists met last year to discuss a report put together by Arkadi Gerney, a longtime Democratic operative and communicator. The report argued that left-leaning donors could help change the conversation by challenging right-wing dominance in local television and talk radio, which the report said goes unmatched on the left.

Soros Fund Management’s acquisition of Audacy has already prompted fears among the conservative media personalities whose shows are broadcast on the company’s stations.

Dom Theodore, the program director of Glenn Beck’s radio program, told Semafor that while iHeartMedia and Cumulus both carry more conservative news talk programs, Audacy carries some conservative and straight news shows, and he hopes “that new ownership would maintain the integrity of those brands as not to do so would be a major business mistake.”

“In a healthy republic, the media is a ‘check-and-balance’ against those in power. But over the last few years, we’ve seen media outlets parroting talking points constructed by those in power, and over-consolidation of the media leading to censorship on an unprecedented scale by the elite,” he said. “This should concern every American.”

The organization’s philanthropic arm also is engaged in media efforts, as are some of Soros’ other family members. (Semafor wasted an afternoon chasing down a tip that one podcast company had held talks with Soros, only to find that the group had actually discussed licensing podcast content to Soros’ nephew, Jeffrey Soros, who runs a small media company in Los Angeles). Last year, Accelerate Change, a nonprofit group backed by the Open Society Foundations, partnered with Vox Media to spin off NowThis. As Semafor reported at the time, leaders of the new NowThis privately told people involved with the ownership transition that it planned to lean further into progressive activism.