Wizzard Software has announced that it has signed the final merger agreement for the acquisition of podcasting company Webmayhem, Inc., dba Liberated Syndication, which the company says creates the largest podcasting distribution network in the world.

Liberated Syndication’s customer base consists of nearly 6,000 independent and commercial producers of radio and television style internet shows. In the month of January, these podcasting pioneers distributed an estimated 10 million hours of media programming.

‚ÄúWe believe we are the first and only publicly-traded podcast broadcasting company, and now, by joining forces with Liberated Syndication, we are the largest podcasting network in the world,‚Äù said Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard Software. ‚ÄúLibsyn is considered the de facto leader in the podcasting distribution business and as we introduce our speech technologies to their services, we will be strategically positioned to maximize revenue generation for the shows we broadcast. Advertisers and consumers alike want relevant, focused advertisements, something clearly lacking in today’s digital media offerings, which can be accomplished using our combined technologies and skills.‚Äù

Wizzard also announced the launch of Wizzard Media, a division of the company, made up of Libsyn, BlastPodcast and Switchpod.

“Wizzard Media will be the catalyst for attracting sponsors and advertising opportunities for the shows we currently broadcast,” said Wizzard Media’s Dave Chekan, co-founder of Liberated Syndication. “Using speech recognition we can now match advertisers with very specific, engaging shows, catering to a wide variety of mainstream and niche markets. Applying our geographical targeting capabilities we can find strong, relevant advertising opportunities for local businesses in addition to national brands, a significant revenue generating opportunity for Wizzard and for our content producers.”

Founded in 1995, Wizzard’s roots are in the speech technology application development market. In the coming months, the Company expects to integrate text-to-speech and speech recognition services into the Wizzard Media Network. These new features will provide podcasters with text-to-speech based search engine indexing as well as transcription services.