New York Times to purchase Serial Productions

The New York Times Company has agreed to buy the production company behind the hit podcast “Serial” for about $25 million.

The move comes as the newspaper aims to expand its digital journalism.

With this deal, Serial Productions will have the opportunity to expand the number of shows it makes and those shows will then be promoted on the Times’s website, in its newsletters and through its other channels, says Julie Snyder, executive editor of Serial Productions.

“The idea is to drive New York Times readers and listeners toward Serial projects,” Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor who oversees the Times’s audio efforts said. “There’s going to be ways that we can help Serial tell more stories, bigger stories and, down the road, figure out how our newsroom and theirs can coordinate even more deeply.”

Additionally, Dolnick adds that the deal with the Times will also allow the company to hire more producers and could ultimately draw in Times journalists for future stories.

Although newspapers across the country continue to face an eroding print media, the Times has slowly moved into audio and visual storytelling in recent years and has launched notable projects, including news podcast, “The Daily” and a television news magazine, “The Weekly” which was recently re-branded as “The New York Times Presents.”