Apple may buy talk radio app Swell for $30M

Apple may try to flesh out its media offerings by stepping into talk radio.

Specifically, the company may be purchasing talk radio player Swell for roughly $30 million, according to Recode.

Such an acquisition would be just another in a series of buys from Apple. Earlier this year the company bought Beats Electronics for a hefty $3 billion price tag, and BookLamp, a Pandora-like book recommendation service.

Swell was reportedly having troubled finding a wide audience, although user engagement has been high. The app is well suited for playing in the car, which could make an excellent new feature on Apple’s podcast app, which hasn’t found much success to date.

If the deal goes through, Swell will shut down this week as a part of its agreement with Apple, though most of Swell’s employees will join Apple, a person close to the company tells VentureBeat.

Before being bought by Apple, Swell had raised $7.2 million from DFJ, Google Ventures, and InterWest Partners as well as other investors.