The creators of true-crime hit podcast “Anatomy of a Homicide” have sued Audiochuck, the corporate based by Ashley Flowers, alleging they weren’t paid “hundreds of thousands of {dollars}” they have been owed underneath Audiochuck’s advert take care of SiriusXM.
Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger, hosts and creators of “Anatomy of a Homicide,” allege of their lawsuit that Audiochuck breached its contract by failing to pay them their “rightful share of Defendant’s unique promoting income take care of SiriusXM, an quantity equating to hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. The SiriusXM deal has benefited Defendant enormously, however Plaintiffs have by no means seen that profit, and as a substitute have been topic to the entire draw back within the type of decreased income and restrictions on different types of monetization.”
Nicolazzi and Weinberger additionally allege that Audiochuck breached the “implied covenant of fine religion and honest dealing,” which accompanies contracts in New York. Through the negotiation and execution of the events’ contract extension in October 2024, Audiochuck didn’t disclose that it was additionally renegotiating its settlement with SiriusXM (taking impact in January 2025), and “then withheld materials phrases of that renegotiated deal which considerably diminished the Plaintiffs’ income under the elevated share they bargained for,” in keeping with the lawsuit.
“This case entails creators being repeatedly taken benefit of by a big media firm,” the lawsuit says.
Nicolazzi and Weinberger’s contract with Audiochuck runs till the tip of 2025 and the duo are producing new weekly episodes of “Anatomy of a Homicide” by means of December. However the way forward for the present is unsure after that.
The lawsuit was filed Nov. 13 within the U.S. District Court docket Southern District of New York, with Nicolazzi’s Forseti Media and Weinberger’s Weinberger Media listed as plaintiffs. A redacted model of the criticism was unsealed Wednesday by the court docket. The go well with seeks unspecified financial damages.
Selection has reached out to Audiochuck for remark.
Of their lawsuit, the “Anatomy of a Homicide” creators cite experiences that Audiochuck’s take care of SiriusXM was value as a lot as $200 million. If that’s true, if their podcast was even 10% of the general valuation, “its proportional share of the SiriusXM Deal would have been $20 Million,” the go well with says.
Audiochuck initially its unique ad-sales and distribution take care of SiriusXM in 2021 and that runs by means of 2025. Now Audiochuck is exiting the SiriusXM deal underneath a brand new $150 million pact with Fox Corp.’s Tubi Media Group, which incorporates the event of a “Crime Junkie” FAST channel to be distributed throughout Tubi and the Fox One subscription service.
Earlier this 12 months, Audiochuck obtained $40 million in funding from Peter Chernin’s The Chernin Group, the primary outdoors capital for Audiochuck, which valued the Indianapolis-based firm at about $250 million. Flowers controls and owns a majority of Audiochuck, and TCG owns a minority share.
In line with the lawsuit, Nicolazzi is a profession murder prosecutor with 21 years of expertise on the Brooklyn District Legal professional’s workplace, with 16 of these years within the workplace’s murder bureau, the place she final served as chief of trials. She can be host and co-executive producer of “True Conviction,” which ran for 4 seasons on Investigation Discovery and govt producer and host of Wolf Leisure’s “Regulation & Order: Felony Justice System” podcast, at the moment ending its second season.
Weinberger spent almost a decade in regulation enforcement in Florida, earlier than embarking on a profession in media targeted on crime. He’s a three-time Emmy-award successful investigative journalist, beforehand at WNBC-TV and WCBS-TV in New York, and is at the moment CEO and govt producer at Weinberger Media, which he based in 2007. Weinberger is creator of “On the Case with Paula Zahn,” now in its twenty eighth season on Investigation Discovery and producer of the community’s “True Conviction.”
