How Apple Podcasts works in China: and why you’re (probably) not there

Wanting to reach audiences in China with your podcast on Apple Podcasts? You might need to think again.

In 2019, Apple Podcasts began removing Chinese podcast apps from the Chinese version of the App Store. The Cyberspace Administration of China, part of the Chinese government, was keen to highlight that it wanted to act against “the chaos in online audio”:

Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China, together with relevant departments, launched a special rectification campaign against the chaos in online audio. Based on the clues reported by the public and after verification and evidence collection, the first batch of illegal and irregular audio platforms such as Zhiya, Soul, Yuwan, and Yishuo FM that spread historical nihilism and obscene and pornographic content were punished in accordance with laws and regulations, including interviews, removal from shelves, and closure of services, to carry out comprehensive and centralized rectification of the audio industry. … These illegal and irregular behaviors of online audio platforms have seriously damaged the network ecology and have a bad impact on the healthy growth of young people, and must be resolutely governed.

Apple continued removing apps in 2020 - removing Pocket Casts after the Cyberspace Administration of China requested the app’s removal. In 2025, there are precious few podcast apps available in China: Cosmos (also known as Xiaoyuzhou FM), Himalaya, and… Apple Podcasts.

Yes - Apple also, of course, runs its own Podcasts app. That is still available in China; but with a specially selected list of shows. Apple’s support staff said in 2020 that “only shows from select partners are available in the Chinese Apple Podcasts store”.

So, it’s well known that individual shows are unavailable in Apple Podcasts. However, Podnews has now discovered that Apple now has the capability to remove specific episodes on request.

How Apple Podcasts removes specific episodes

The Apple Podcasts app always used to parse RSS feeds itself. When you refreshed your phone’s podcast app, it would download and parse the whole RSS feed for a show itself.

However, in 2021, it made unannounced changes to remove that behaviour. Now, all shows are parsed directly by Apple’s servers, rather than by individual phone users.

That has allowed Apple Podcasts to flag episodes on its own servers to remove individual episodes in specific countries: which just disappear, without any indication that something is missing.

It also means that if you just put the RSS feed into the Apple Podcasts app, it won’t bypass these checks. A removed episode remains removed in the app, no matter how you subscribe to the show.

Further, according to one person we spoke to, it appears that because Apple Podcasts operates a “clean directory” in the country, you cannot subscribe to any show via RSS using the app that doesn’t already appear in the Chinese storefront. “In short, Apple Podcasts in China is no longer functioning as a podcatcher,” they told us.

We built an “availability checker“ to see what’s available and what isn’t

The Lex Fridman Podcast is a good starting point. When we checked, of the latest 200 episodes available in the US, 22 were quietly unavailable in China - including episodes with Noam Chomsky (where he spoke about Chinese relations with the US), Tucker Carlson (who spoke about Xi Jinping), and Vivek Ramaswamy (who also touched on China).

The Joe Rogan Experience is available but again with episodes removed in China: episodes don’t include Donald Trump, who was running for President at the time; and also don’t include other dangerous subversives like, um, Dr Phil.

Naturally, many shows aren’t available in China at all. Podnews Daily is unavailable, and you won’t find it with a search.

The same goes for the BBC’s Global News Podcast, The Daily from The New York Times, The Rest is Politics, or even the Podnews Weekly Review.

Crime Junkie is fine; so is The Daily Show Ears Edition.

What about elsewhere?

Apple Podcasts features vary by availability in each country. Particularly, podcasts marked as “explicit” are sometimes behind an opt-in flag, or sometimes removed altogether.

Belarus is marked as a country by Apple that does not have any podcasts marked as “explicit” available; and the Joe Rogan Experience isn’t available in Belarus. Nor, incidentally, is the Lex Fridman podcast.

But in most cases, podcasts are available in Apple Podcasts on a global basis, outside of China - even in some countries with restricted media.

While Apple Podcasts apparently removed Что случилось, a podcast from Meduza, in August 2023, it’s available again in Russia, as is Холод which was removed at the same time. Also available in full within Russia, surprisingly, is Радиоархив Русской службы Би-би-си, the BBC Russian service.

Apple Podcasts in Thailand allows Thai news from NHK or from SBS; Radio Free Malaysia’s critical podcasts from London are available in Malaysia; and That’s A Gay Ass Podcast is available in the United Arab Emirates, despite homosexuality being illegal there.

And, all of Lex Fridman’s episodes are available in Hong Kong (a special administration region of China), and in Macau.

(Our availability checker works for any podcast, but we’ll leave how to use it as an academic challenge for you; we don’t really want to link to it from every show’s podcast page.)

Premium Subscriptions

The website for Apple Podcasts suggests that premium subscriptions are not available in China.

In fact, they are: but under the hood, the service uses Himalaya (which is licenced to host audio files in China, unlike Apple). The only podcasts eligible for premium subscriptions are those invited by Apple, we’re told.

Services like SupportingCast or Memberful, which give individual RSS feeds to subscribers, don’t work in China - because, as above, the RSS feeds needs to be specifically approved.

The iTunes API is unaffected

The iTunes API defaults to the US storefront; so all shows are available via this method.

There’s no way to learn what’s available in different countries without asking the API multiple times for each country.

The Podcast Index is a replacement directory, which claims that it is censor-free. Yet, of course, access to many foreign websites is unavailable in China, including RSS feeds and audio files.

Your own dot-com is always the best plan

In any country, the ability to trade means following local laws. It’s illegal to insult the King in Thailand (and gives great offence); in Germany it’s illegal to deny the Holocaust or disseminate Nazi propaganda; and in the US, there are still topics that are not covered by First Amendment protection.

Apple is keen to be in China as a hardware and services company, and it’s an important market. Many of its products are made there. Apple has to comply with requests from governments everywhere - just look at its adoption of USB-C after, in part, requests from the European Union. So Apple will follow requests from the Chinese government about content availability. (The other option is not to be available at all).

It’s pleasing to see that, in many countries, content is not removed from Apple Podcasts.

Users in affected countries should also be aware of monitoring of their internet use. Insecure podcast feeds are relatively few these days; but domain names are never encrypted unless you use a VPN. (And, use of a VPN is illegal in some countries).

That said - we’ve not been aware that Apple can remove specific episodes before; and we also didn’t realise that changes to the Apple Podcasts app in 2021 means that users in those countries can no longer circumvent these availability challenges by simply subscribing to the RSS feed. We’re also not clear how obvious it is to users that episodes have been removed.

One of the most visible examples of Apple Podcasts removing a show from the US store was Alex Jones’s Infowars, which was removed in 2018. With the changes to the Apple Podcasts app in 2021, that removal could also have stopped the RSS feed working within the Apple Podcasts app, even if the RSS feed was subscribed to manually. Luckily, in most countries, it’s easy to download alternative podcast apps should you require one.

As ever - your best option to promote a podcast is to get your own website and your own RSS feed, and promote those - not simply to link to services like Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Spotify.