Apple are putting new podcast category changes live

• Apple appears to be in the process of putting their new podcast categories live. They announced them at WWDC earlier this year.

  • The Daily now appears in the “News” category, which was previously called “News & Politics”; however The Wilderness appears to be in the same category under the older “News & Politics” name. They both reference “News & Politics” in their RSS feeds. (The iTunes API that everyone else uses is still returning the old names).
  • Scuba Obsessed is in the brand new 'Wilderness’ category. Their RSS feed specifies “Sports & Recreation > Outdoor”.
  • Browsing via category appears to have been suspended in Apple Podcasts apps, including the beta Apple Podcasts macOS and iOS 13 apps, and, we understand, iTunes too.

• Blubrry has already activated the new podcast categories in their platform; and we understand Libsyn should follow suit today. The Powerpress Wordpress plugin has a new release to also support the new categories.

• Can’t update your categories to the new ones yet? Don’t worry: your podcast will not be de-listed.

• Distorted, a UK audio production and syndication company, has launched a new service to get your podcast on radio stations across the world. The company already produces shows for iHeartMedia, Sirius XM, British Airways and more.

• People don’t hate ads. They hate bad ads, according to podcast ad company Zvook, which gives two tips on getting your listeners love your podcast ads.

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• Podfan has launched in beta, promising a Patreon-like membership service. We haven’t enabled payment, but our page is over here.

• American Public Media has hired Liliana Kim as Managing Director of Podcasts. She starts August 19th. She joins from Viacom, and was formerly at HBO and PBS.

  
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• What podcasts are young people listening to - and how do they discover them? The Los Angeles Times talks to four 'young people’ to find out.

Thank you to Mandi Kaye for her kind personal support of Podnews. Mandi is host of Pop Culturally Deprived and many other podcasts in the Eloquent Gushing media network. You should be like Mandi.

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