Well, I haven’t written on this topic for at least a month, but an interesting story appeared on Semafor (via Ben Werdmuller) called “The Incredible Shrinking Podcast Industry”. It seems that Apple releases download counts for shows for Apple Podcasts app users, and that they made a change in their app recently to stop automatic downloads of podcasts if the user had not been listening to a podcast within the last two weeks. This resulted in a big drop for many podcasts that use this data to track listener volume. I guess my comments in chapter 60 (and associated podcast) about Apple controlling the master list of podcasts were incorrect, that they ALSO control the way podcasts track download counts (for their app, which I GUESS is the most used app for listening to podcasts). To echo chapter 60 – WHO CARES!

This Semafor article also referenced the Hot Pod Newsletter from The Verge, which seems to be attempting to cover the “podcasting industry”, in addition to shilling for its own conference. I guess I’ll have to subscribe….yawn…