There might not be an officially official release date for the second season of Serial yet, but the podcast phenomenon already has an interesting new media partner. Pandora announced today that it would be a streaming partner for the podcast’s second season, saying that new episodes will be made available on the site each Thursday at 6 a.m. whenever the next season starts. Episodes will air on Pandora in five-minute chunks, though listeners who wish to avoid Pandora’s commercial interruptions can do so—for a fee.
As Ira Glass noted in a statement, “for people already listening to Serial and This American Life, nothing will change. But we believe lots of people who’d like our shows simply haven’t heard them, or haven’t started listening to podcasts.” Glass goes on to cite a study that says only 17 percent of Americans—46 million people, roughly—listen to podcasts, while Pandora’s subscriber base is about 80 million people.
[via The Associated Press]