Apple Podcasts paints the town purple

• The team from Apple Podcasts spoke at The Podcast Show yesterday - the first ever time that Apple Podcasts has spoken at a podcasting event. The talk, by Jake Shapiro and Susie Warhurst, was well received by the audience, who learnt that 2024 was Apple Podcasts’ best year ever for listeners, hours, and premium podcast subscribers. The chimneys at the iconic Battersea Power Station, where Apple’s UK operations are based, turned Apple Podcasts purple in celebration of the podcast creator community this week.

• Apple unveiled some data from one of Goalhanger’s shows, The Rest is History. That show has 45,000 paying subscribers using Apple Podcasts, and it was revealed that 57% of them are on the annual plan, which is helpful for retention. Tony Pastor, the co-founder of Goalhanger, was quoted as saying “The key advantage of Apple Podcasts Subscriptions is how seamless the experience is for listeners.”

  • Apple Podcasts also shared the strength of UK podcasting, with many UK shows also achieving top 10 chart positions around the world, like Wondery/Novel’s Kill List and Noiser’s Sherlock Holmes. Apple said that 88 of the top 100 UK shows are made in the UK.

• Apple Podcasts announced the latest additions to the Creators We Love program, which includes five of the UK’s most well-established podcasters. Selected by the Apple Podcasts editorial team, the five shows will be promoted both on and off the platform.

  • Opinion: It’s nearly 20 years since podcasts first went into iTunes; and Apple has been a good steward of open podcasting since. Apple Podcasts has been criticised in the past for being overly secretive; but to see the Apple team being so open with creators at The Podcast Show was refreshing and well-reviewed by all - and reinforced that Apple, of all of the big podcast platforms, is podcasting’s friend. We hope to see more of this in future.

• The Podcast Show’s total visitors this year were 6,100 for the two days of conference and exhibition, and other live events throughout the week means the event had over 10,000 people overall. We understand the show had a record number of attendees on Wednesday; though event organiser Jason Carter told us that the aim of the London event isn’t to grow, but instead to continue to improve and engage with visitors. We were a media partner.

• VeePod, a new creative studio tool for video podcasting, has been launched. It can turn any space into a flexible production environment.

• Spanish-language podcast platform iVoox has published a Monetization Guide, described as a practical handbook filled with tips, resources, strategies, and success stories to help creators earn money from their podcast audience through fan subscriptions. To date, the company says it has generated over €4M in income for creators.

• Audion announced that the company worked with a perfume company, Lolita Lempicka, on an immersive audio campaign, working with media agency Place to Be Media.

• Crowd Network is to launch its first female athlete-owned podcast. Long Story Short launches in June.

Moves and hires

• BBC Studios has made a number of new hires in the audio division, with three new genre-based creative directors.

Tips and tricks - with The Podcast Show London

• Embedding a podcast player in your website is a great way to get people to start listening. While your own podcast host will have one of these, here’s many more, from Apple and Spotify to others.

Podcast News - with Airwave

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