Apple Podcasts paints the town purple

The team from Apple Podcasts spoke at The Podcast Show yesterday - the first ever time that Apple Podcasts has spoken at a podcasting event. The talk, by Jake Shapiro and Susie Warhurst, was well received by the audience, who learnt that 2024 was Apple Podcasts’ best year ever for listeners, hours, and premium podcast subscribers. The chimneys at the iconic Battersea Power Station, where Apple’s UK operations are based, turned Apple Podcasts purple in celebration of the podcast creator community this week.

Apple unveiled some data from one of Goalhanger’s shows, The Rest is History. That show has 45,000 paying subscribers using Apple Podcasts, and it was revealed that 57% of them are on the annual plan, which is helpful for retention. Tony Pastor, the co-founder of Goalhanger, was quoted as saying “The key advantage of Apple Podcasts Subscriptions is how seamless the experience is for listeners.”

Apple Podcasts also shared the strength of UK podcasting, with many UK shows also achieving top 10 chart positions around the world, like Wondery/Novel’s Kill List and Noiser’s Sherlock Holmes. Apple said that 88 of the top 100 UK shows are made in the UK.

Apple Podcasts announced the latest additions to the Creators We Love program, which includes five of the UK’s most well-established podcasters. Selected by the Apple Podcasts editorial team, the five shows will be promoted both on and off the platform.

Opinion: It’s nearly 20 years since podcasts first went into iTunes; and Apple has been a good steward of open podcasting since. Apple Podcasts has been criticised in the past for being overly secretive; but to see the Apple team being so open with creators at The Podcast Show was refreshing and well-reviewed by all - and reinforced that Apple, of all of the big podcast platforms, is podcasting’s friend. We hope to see more of this in future.