When Apple changes its software, it doesn’t just impact the end user. Companies can be affected too, even by the smallest OS tweaks. According to one podcasting company, a tiny update to the Apple Podcasts app has cost them $9 million in lost revenue.
Philip Whiterow writes for Proactive that Audioboom Group, a podcasting company that’s been ranked as the fifth largest podcast publisher in the US, lost a lot of money because of an Apple Podcasts update in iOS 17.
The change in question has to do with how the Podcasts app handles subscriptions and downloads. As of iOS 17, when a user follows a podcast, by default the Podcasts app won’t download as many episodes as it did previously.
As a result of this small software tweak, Audioboom says it lost an estimated $9 million in revenue.
Top comment by James
The publisher should be applauding this change. Clicking "follow" and having fewer episodes download "automatically" means that the downloads they do track are more meaningful. If a listener downloads additional episodes, the publisher can demonstrate "intent to listen." From the perspective of a podcast advertiser, I'd be happier that the publisher I'm paying isn't inflating numbers trying to milk more money out of me. On the other hand, the publisher is calling attention to the fact that they're inflating numbers. If users were actually listening, the download numbers wouldn't have dropped so drastically.
Audioboom says its shows receive more than 130 million downloads monthly, from 38 million unique global listeners. So at that kind of scale, even a minor software update to download numbers will have a big impact on the bottom line.
Only users of Apple’s own Podcasts app had an impact here, so all the listeners using Spotify, Overcast, or another third-party podcast client made no difference.
After spending some time many years ago going relatively unchanged, Apple has continued to roll out annual updates to the Podcasts app at an increased pace in recent years. For example, just months ago transcripts arrived in iOS 17.4 and quickly became one of my favorite features.
Perhaps Audioboom will be happy to hear that the Podcasts app is largely unchanged in iOS 18.
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