Taylor Swift made New Heights 6× larger last month

• Taylor Swift’s appearance in New Heights made the show’s monthly downloads more than six times larger, according to a report from Podscribe. The show became the fifth biggest in August. However, it was still beaten, in terms of 60d average episode downloads, by The Diary of a CEO, which averaged 3.4mn downloads per episode (New Heights got an average of 3.2mn). The report also says that Amazon is now podcasting’s biggest advertiser.

  • Podtrac also released its rankers for August 2025. Most publishers saw an increase in audience. Wondery isn’t a participating publisher.

• Is YouTube doing odd things? Linus Media Group suggests 25% of their views have disappeared. Second Wind suggests something is going wrong; RedLetterMedia suggests it’s something to do with swearing; Moon Channel wonders if it’s something they said; and Clint’s Reptiles are confused as to why their numbers are low. Whatever’s going on, there seems to be a lot of reports of lower traffic.

• CrimeCon in Denver announced the winners of the 2025 Clue Awards. There were two awards for podcasts - Who Killed Jennifer Judd (season 2), produced by ID and Ark Media; and True Crime News: The Podcast, from Telepictures Productions Inc and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

• Zeno Media has launched Zeno Plus, an “AI powered toolkit for radio and podcasting”. The toolkit includes an automatic radio-to-podcast service, AI cloned voices, and monetisation.

• Daniel J Lewis has launched PodChapters, a transcription and chapterisation tool to produce titled sections in your show to help your listeners navigate it. The tool uses AI to suggest chapters, and works in the browser.

• Building on the success of an event earlier this year in Chicago, HigherEd PodCon II has been announced in Cleveland OH, USA, next July.

• Spotify claim that sports is the “fastest-growing video podcast category” on the platform. Consumption is up 53% quarter-on-quarter, the company says.

  • Globally, sports video is consumed the most in the US, UK, Brazil, and Australia, we’re told. However, premium video revenue isn’t available to those creators in Brazil.

• Pocket Casts free users are likely to see ads in the app from here-on in, according to notes for a new version.

• It’s Ausha’s turn to write-up the company’s experience at Podcast Movement. And it’s also Libsyn’s turn as well - with a lot of helpful advice.

• Following cuts in federal funding, PBS has cut 100 jobs; Houston Public Media has eliminated 9 staff positions; PBS station KET is to layoff 36 staff; and LA’s KUSC has reportedly cut eight staff.

Thank you to Denmark’s Amp 99 Podcast Marketing for becoming a personal supporter. “Den bedste løsning når kunderne skal elske lyden af dit brand,” they promise - and they’re right, customers should fall in love with the sound of your brand. You can join them by supporting us, and keeping Podnews free for everyone.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Exclusive: Apple Podcasts is getting ready to support the Podcasting 2.0 JSON chapters feature. The company quietly added documentation for podcast:chapters to its RSS specification page, but appears to have removed it again over the weekend, once it was noticed on social media. Here’s what it looked like. The tool, dubbed “super chapters” by some, includes “time-synced images and links”, as well as allowing podcasters to change and add to chapters without changing the audio file.

• Are Apple Podcasts really supporting this tag yet? Well, yes and no:

  • We added a few test episodes to our PodClock testing tool to help with testing this feature. S1/E14 is a file with no ID3 chapters in it, but links to a valid podcast:chapters file. That should display these chapters if they’re supported. However, chapters aren’t appearing in Apple Podcasts (iOS 26) for this episode, however. So… no. Not yet.
  • However, these days, the Apple Podcasts app works by ingesting RSS feeds centrally. The chapters file linked in PodClock was requested by 17.241.75.180 - a machine belonging to Apple’s network in Cupertino. The useragent was “itms”, which is the standard one Apple Podcasts tools use. So… yes.

• But why are Apple Podcasts supporting this feature, when ID3 chapters are just fine? Blogging personally, our Editor, takes a wild guess at a new feature about to launch.

• Elsewhere, Microsoft’s VibeVoice is a thing like Google’s NotebookLM, and can generate up to four voices from a text. Or, at least, it would have done, but people got it doing naughty things, so they’ve removed it “until we are confident that out-of-scope use is no longer possible.”

• Pod Engine has launched a podcast intelligence API, providing developers with podcast data across transcripts, social media metrics, YouTube data, charts, reviews, and AI-powered content analysis.

Tips and tricks - with Patreon

• When is the right time to pitch to a podcast network? Rachel Corbett ought to know: she runs one.

Podcast News

Congratulations to Dave Jackson - The School of Podcasting podcast has hit episode 1,000. The show contains expert Tips for Launching and Growing Your Podcast. The topic in this special episode? How to Grow Your Podcast (and he hints that maybe your show isn’t growing, because it’s not good… harsh!)

Gear Abby has been launched by The Rock Fight Podcast Network. Hosted by author and outdoor journalist Shawnté Salabert, the new podcast is part trail guide, part advice column, and part gear nerd corner.

Life in the middle class comes with its fair share of blessings and battles—and now, there’s a podcast that isn’t afraid to talk about it all. Middle Class Matters is new from the Rogue Media Network. With honesty, humor, and a Southern dose of sass, Renae and Brooke tackle the everyday issues facing working-class families across America.

Paul Burrell, the former butler to Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana, has launched his first ever podcast, called Paul Burrell’s Royal Tea. In the series, Burrell will share his unique insider perspective on royal life, blending commentary on the latest royal news with first-hand stories from his time in the royal household.

What if ancient artifacts from the Getty Museum came to life to tell their stories? If Objects Could Talk unlocks the hidden lives as the objects themselves reveal their surprising and often humorous history. Did you know that ancient Romans used crushed eggshells for toothpaste? Or that Egyptians shaved their eyebrows in mourning—for their cats? A great listen for curious kids and parents to explore how these items were created, used, and cherished in daily life thousands of years ago.

Guns Unpacked, a podcast by Arizona State University (ASU) and 2022 MacArthur fellow Jennifer Carlson, returns for a second season. Co-hosted by Alex Young, the show hopes to interrogate, elevate, and engage the terms of the gun debate as it stands today in the United States. The second season feature discussions with scholars, journalists, and creative writers on topics ranging from the social history of hunting to the impact of US gun culture on Indigenous women.