YouTube adds podcast chart, new podcast homepage

PSA: If you’re flying to London next week, you’ll need an ETA before you board. They’re $22 (£16). Each person must apply separately. Details from the UK Government here.

• YouTube has announced that it’s launched a podcasts chart. The top 100 is here - it’s weekly, updated every Wednesday. Unlike other podcast charts, the YouTube chart is ranked by watch-time.

  • YouTube “generally” defines a podcast as a playlist designated as a “podcast” by the creator in the upload process.
  • Bumper has discovered that the available data goes back to Mar 18, 2025. Joe Rogan has been #1 every week.
  • It’s a US chart only. The company is “expanding podcast charts to additional regions.”

• YouTube has also, quietly, updated the YouTube Podcasts homepage in the US to be editorially curated. It highlights podcasts as square podcast artwork, and editorially curates them into different rails (“Award-winning”, “Music minded”, “In conversation with”, “Gaming and sport”, etc). Viewers in other countries get the older, algorithmic page that contains 16:9 video thumbnails, including many things that aren’t really podcasts. Compare these two screenshots - YouTube Podcasts in the US, and YouTube Podcasts in Australia. This change appears to only be in place in the US.

  • One of the concerns for our industry highlighted in the Podnews Report Card this year was the YouTube podcasts homepage, with comments that the company “needs to invest in editorial curation to be taken more seriously”.

• Spotify announced a change in the way they will display play-counts for podcasts. “To help celebrate growth, plays will be presented as incremental milestones instead of precise figures, beginning once an episode hits 50K plays. Creators will still see their precise numbers in their private dashboards.” There’s more detail in the Spotify for Creators blog.

  • The actual definition of a play remains undocumented by Spotify - and by YouTube; but we do know that they are worked out very differently to Apple Podcasts plays. None of the statistics from Apple, Spotify’s app, or YouTube are certified under the IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines.

• Apple Podcasts is speaking in a podcast conference for the first time ever - at The Podcast Show 2025 “Inside Apple Podcasts: Explore some of its latest features, plus how creators can grow their audience and build a business on the platform” will be, doubtless, a well-attended session; the event has published its final programme.

  • Next year, the event will be 20-21 May 2026, in the same venue.

• Fresh Air, a UK-based podcast agency for brands, is becoming part of The Inflectiv Group. Founder Neil Cowling told Podnews: “It’s a big step in boosting us to compete at the level we’re aiming for and take advantage of the position we’ve already established in the branded podcast world.” The company will continue to operate independently.

• A number of podcast hosting companies have been certified for v2.2 of the IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines - AdsWizz, PRX, and Simplecast all re-certified yesterday.

• Sweet Fish Media has released research on video podcasts. The B2B video podcast company says that only 17% of current podcasts record video; only one branded podcast in the top 150 shows has more than half a million subscribers; and regular posting is the most important thing for success.

• BBC Sounds, the BBC’s proprietary radio and podcast app, reported an increase of plays of on-demand audio in Q1/25, up from 253mn to 261mn. The BBC also reports 225mn podcast downloads, up from 214mn last quarter. The BBC was due to close BBC Sounds to global users this quarter, but then postponed the plan.

• The Podnews Weekly Review chats with Acast about the company’s new talent-voiced ads; and with Buzzsprout about their new tools to help you keep podcasting.

Tips and tricks - with The Podcast Show London

• Our how to understand podcast stats page explains how the Apple Podcasts chart works, and why it’ll be very different from the YouTube charts.

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