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Report: Apple Podcasts Favors Shows With Subscriptions

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Apple favors podcasts in its "Browse" tab that participate in its subscriptions program, according to Semafor.

Podcasts Feature
To be featured at the top of Apple Podcasts' Browse tab, creators simply have to submit a form to Apple, but the report noted that, last week, five of the first seven shows in the "Browse" carousel in the ‌Apple Podcasts‌ app were participants in ‌Apple Podcasts‌ Subscriptions.

Apple launched podcast subscriptions in 2021, allowing creators to offer premium content to their audience, such as bonus episodes and exclusive segments, in exchange for a small subscription fee. Apple, in return, takes up to a 30 percent cut of the revenue generated from these subscriptions.

One executive at an independent podcast told Semafor that Apple explicitly said to them that podcast subscription enrolment would help their chances of being promoted in the carousel, while another remarked that ‌Apple Podcasts‌ Subscriptions was worth participating in simply for in-app placement advantages. An individual at Apple added that the ‌Apple Podcasts‌ app is now designed to offer more features to shows that participate in the subscription program, with several key slots reserved for this purpose.

Tags: Apple Podcasts, Apple Podcasts Subscriptions

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Top Rated Comments

DMG35 Avatar
DMG35
32 months ago
Man, Apple seems to do shadier and shadier things every day. I still love their products but they do raise my brows seemingly every other day.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
klasma
32 months ago

But those days are mostly gone. Podcasts started out as randoms in their basement recording on their laptop mics, now many of them are professional operations that people rely on to feed their families. There are still some of the former around, but we're kidding ourselves if we don't look at podcasts as a business.
I‘m okay that those exist, but Apple being hell-bent on taking an extra cut of every service and content you access through an Apple device is an abuse of their position. The bicycle for your mind turned into a vacuum for your wallet. It literally sucks.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
klasma
32 months ago

They don’t build and grow platforms for some charitable purpose. Apple is a business and it’s executives dutifully bound to maximize profits as much as possible in conjunction with maintaining the health of the company.
This is very American view of business. There is absolutely no necessity to maximize profits in order to have a healthy business. It’s also a myth that there would be a duty towards shareholders to maximize profits. And if there was, we should rally against it, because it’s not beneficial to customers and not healthy for society. Profits should be a means to an end, not the end itself.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
contacos Avatar
contacos
32 months ago
EU like: excuse me!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ThunderSkunk Avatar
ThunderSkunk
32 months ago
Last time I looked you could subscribe to every podcast on earth, bc that’s how podcasts work. Someone over there keeps making a continual effort to break up the beautiful simplicity of what podcasts fundamentally are & complicate it with groups, channels, stations, the inexplicable listen now/browse/library/search redundancy & Microsoft-bad screen wasting ui designs with minimized controls that take more and stupidly precise taps to operate, all still running on a backend that still can’t remember to keep your downloads current over Wi-Fi until it’s too late and you’re in the car & open the app trying to listen to something. And it still isn’t integrated into the home screen resume playback control.

Twenty years ago podcasts were a single simple ui screen in iTunes that showed you everything you needed to know and gave you clear accessible playback controls all in a single efficient layout. Apple should familiarize themselves with what a nice job they used to do.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mrkevinfinnerty Avatar
Mrkevinfinnerty
32 months ago
Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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