Why Apple will likely start producing original, exclusive podcasts
Apple didn’t invent podcasting, but it’s served as a benevolent overlord for much of the medium’s existence. It added formal support for podcasts in 2005 when it made it possible to search for them within iTunes. In 2012, Apple launched a standalone podcast app that it shipped to every iPhone home screen. In June 2018, Libsyn estimated Apple had about 62 percent market share of podcast listening. Its closest competitor, Spotify, had only 6 percent.
Despite Apple’s early lead in podcasting, it hasn’t expressed much interest in innovating or monetizing in the space. Its podcast app remains mostly unchanged from year to year, and it only recently fulfilled podcasters’ longstanding request for a more comprehensive analytics dashboard.
But most podcast publishers don’t complain too much about the lack of innovation; they’re all too aware of what happens when a major tech platform gets too obsessed with content monetization. The last thing they want is for Apple’s podcast app to become another Facebook, choking off reach with an inscrutable algorithm, all in an effort to get publishers to pay up if they want to reach their own subscribers.
In fact, many podcasters take pride in the fact that podcasting remains an open ecosystem. Podcasts are distributed through RSS, and anyone can…
