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New Team Brings Four Decades of Experience from SiriusXM, Pandora, Stitcher and Turner Broadcasting
LOS ANGELES, March 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Cineverse (NASDAQ: CNVS), a next-generation entertainment studio, today announced that it has hired Laura Schumer and Ben Cabonargi as Directors of Podcast Sales. With over four decades of experience in the media industry between them, Schumer and Cabonargi will spearhead the new podcast direct sales team for the Cineverse Podcast Network. They will work with the leading podcast media agencies and brands to sell Cineverse's more than 35 audio series that have over 75 million downloads.
Schumer and Cabonargi's appointments are effective immediately, and they will report to Terry City, Senior Vice President, Direct Advertising Sales.
Prior to joining Cineverse, Schumer served as Sales Executive at Pandora/SiriusXM for nine years. There, she sold advertising revenue for satellite, streaming and podcast and was a top producer of podcast revenue for SiriusXM Media, working with various clients, agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Schumer began her career in advertising sales for Turner Broadcasting (now Warner Bros. Discovery), where she worked for seven years.
A seasoned digital audio leader, Cabonargi held several prominent roles before joining Cineverse, including as Director of Revenue Partnerships at SiriusXM, Vice President of Podcast Advertising Partnerships at Stitcher/Midroll Media and Vice President of Sales at TargetSpot. In these positions, he drove growth, omnichannel monetization and strategic partnerships that have helped shape the digital audio and podcasting landscape. Cabonargi has played a pivotal role throughout his career in connecting content creators to brands across podcasting, video, social media and branded content.
"Our rapid podcast expansion in the past year has contributed to significant ad sales growth and the need for an expanded direct sales team that specializes in podcasts and can complement our programmatic revenue," said Terry City, Senior Vice President, Direct Advertising Sales. "We are confident that Laura and Ben have the right experience, passion and leadership qualities to spearhead those efforts and continue our upward trajectory as a top-10 podcast network."
Home to fan-favorite entertainment, true crime and horror podcasts, the Cineverse Podcast Network recently added popular shows Creepy Places: A True Crime Podcast, RetroCrush and Midnight Pulp to its catalog, and partnered with The Stand Group to launch WITZ Podcast Network and expand into comedy programming. In the most recently reported quarter, podcast and related revenues were up 39% over the previous year.