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Shonda Rhimes, Star TV Producer, Signs a Podcast Deal

Shonda Rhimes is taking her talent for storytelling to the audio realm.Credit...Emily Berl for The New York Times

Shonda Rhimes, the prolific television producer whose body of work includes the durable ABC drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” moved into the streaming world in 2017 when she signed a nine-figure deal to create shows for Netflix. Now, she is taking her talent for storytelling to the audio realm as the executive producer of new podcasts to be made in conjunction with the broadcast giant iHeartMedia.

Ms. Rhimes’s production company, Shondaland, and iHeart announced the partnership, a three-year deal, on Wednesday. Under the arrangement, Ms. Rhimes will produce more than a dozen iHeartRadio original podcasts that will be available on the iHeartPodcast Network. With the deal, Shondaland has also started a new division, Shondaland Audio.

In addition to “Grey’s Anatomy,” a network stalwart since 2005, Ms. Rhimes and Shondaland were behind ABC’s “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder.” For Netflix, Ms. Rhimes has said she plans to make at least eight new shows.

The first to go into production, “Bridgerton,” a high-society soap set in Regency-era London, is based on a popular series of romance novels by Julia Quinn. With a cast that includes Julie Andrews and Regé-Jean Page, it is scheduled to start streaming on Netflix next year.

Ms. Rhimes is no podcasting rookie. In 2018, Shondaland created “Katie’s Crib,” a weekly podcast on motherhood, hosted by the “Scandal” actress Katie Lowes. That show will migrate to iHeartPodcast under the new deal, which will include a show about a first lady and another featuring the comedian Ali Wentworth.

Shondaland is “just beginning our digital journey,” Ms. Rhimes said in an email. Of the podcasting venture with iHeart, she said that “if the opportunity presents itself for some crossover with our friends at Netflix, we would certainly explore it.”

Nearly a third of Americans ages 12 and up — about 90 million people — listen to podcasts at least once a month, up from 21 percent three years ago, according to a survey this year by Edison Research.

The 67 shows on NPR, the top podcast studio, were downloaded more than 151 million times last month, according to a ranking from the podcast measurement firm Podtrac. Ranked second was iHeartRadio, with 268 shows downloaded 147 million times. “The Daily,” from The New York Times, is the most popular single podcast.

Commercial time on popular podcasts can fill up months in advance, advertisers have reported. A report this summer from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC estimated that advertising revenue hit $479.1 million last year.

Conal Byrne, the president of iHeartPodcast Network, said in an email that he expected Shondaland Audio to be especially appealing to “an engaged, smart female audience” as well as “top-tier, big, established brands” interested in advertising their wares.

Shondaland podcasts will have four commercials on average, he said — one at the beginning of each episode, two in the middle, and one at the end, each 30 to 60 seconds long.

The intimacy of podcasting is attractive to some advertisers. But as the medium has evolved, the trope of a host riffing on ad copy is no longer the only option. Ads for Shondaland Audio will use a process called dynamic insertion, which allows publishers to go with ads that target specific groups of listeners.

Platforms like Spotify, which once positioned itself exclusively as a music outlet, have crowded into podcasting. Spotify said this year that it had paid about $400 million for the podcast companies Gimlet Media, Anchor and Parcast.

The data on who is listening to a given show is murky, however, and podcasting platforms do not provide “sophisticated targeting tools on par with what Facebook and other digital platforms offer advertisers,” according to an analysis by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

On Wednesday, advertisers and media buyers gathered at the Manhattan office of the publishing company Meredith to preview programming and discuss sponsorship deals with podcasts from Slate, WNYC, Wondery and others.

Ira Glass, the host of the radio show and podcast “This American Life,” went onstage to promote an upcoming Serial Productions show about racial integration in a Brooklyn school.

“There’s just an intimacy to this medium,” he said at the sold-out event, which was organized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. “That kind of bond really carries over to the advertisers.”

WarnerMedia said at the event that it would release several new podcasts in the coming months, including one about the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein featuring the CNN reporter Vicky Ward. This summer, Ms. Ward said her reporting on accusations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Epstein had been blocked from publication in Vanity Fair.

For years, iHeartMedia, which operates about 850 terrestrial radio stations in the United States, largely sat out the podcast revolution. Last year, it paid $55 million for Stuff Media, the producer of hit podcasts like “Stuff You Should Know.” The company has also announced plans to translate shows like “Stuff You Should Know” into Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French and German, and to go into business with Blumhouse, the Hollywood studio behind horror films like “The Purge” and “Get Out.”

Now, iHeart offers technology that allows podcast advertisers to “reach exactly who they want, at scale,” said Mr. Byrne, the president of the company’s podcasting division.

Follow Tiffany Hsu and Ben Sisario on Twitter: @tiffkhsu, @sisario

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Prolific TV Producer Signs a Podcast Deal. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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