Apple Podcasts algorithm drops country-specific curation

• Apple Podcasts has always had an impressive set of region-specific editorial content, ensuring that locally-made shows, among other relevant podcasts, have been promoted to audiences. Until now. Podnews has learnt from multiple sources - amid increasing industry frustration - that Apple Podcasts is no longer showing a country-based editorially-curated view to users in the “Home” and “New” sections in the Apple Podcasts app. Instead, Apple is showing an algorithmic view for each user, designed to follow what the company calls user types: and no longer containing content that has been targeted by country.

  • One Podnews reader in Canada sent us a view of their signed-in Apple Podcasts “New” section, which no longer contains any Canadian-produced shows above the fold - and noting that colleagues and friends all had different shows in this view. This is in spite of threatened Canadian content laws which would require a certain percentage of Canadian-made shows to appear in podcast apps. It’s not just a Canadian thing - Podnews’s Editor notes that in his “new” section, there isn’t a single piece of Australian content promoted to him, but instead highlighting promoted shows adjacent to what he already listens to. We understand that all Apple Podcasts users now get an algorithmic view.
  • The new algorithmic approach removes what Apple Podcasts was uniquely good at: locally knowledgeable teams highlighting serendipitous shows that were locally and culturally relevant. It was a unique editorial part of Apple Podcasts that benefited both listeners and content creators. One producer tells us that “with this shift, Apple becomes just another platform that serves each user’s echo chamber of taste.” Another producer suggested that the algorithmic suggestions are fine, but the older country-specific content was valuable. “Why not show both?”

• For creators that pitch new shows for highlighting in Apple Podcasts, the changes are especially troublesome. Apple’s podcast feature request form was changed in June or July - though Apple Podcasts hasn’t updated the page that links to it - and it no longer contains a way to target a geographical audience. “It’s all global now,” says one producer to us, having confirmed this new behaviour with Apple directly. Another podcast producer in the UK tells Podnews that, due to this algorithmic view, it’s no longer possible to even know whether a show has been selected for promotion.

  • Apple Podcasts gave us a statement, made on background, suggesting in effect that nothing’s changed, and that the company’s editorial approach remains consistent. The statement is at odds with what the company has directly told producers, and what’s visible in the app. It seems a curious own goal: as a podcast producer in Canada tells us, “I now get more Canadian recommendations in Spotify”.

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• Karl Hughes has been acquiring podcast production companies for three years now, after acquiring The P odcast Consultant in 2023. After reviewing a number of production company financials, he asks: What does a $1 million podcast production company actually look like?

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