Apple Podcasts recently hit a milestone – having two million podcasts available to listeners. However, as Amplifi Media explained, all is not quite as it seemed, with many not getting past show number one.
Out of the two million titles reflected in Apple Podcasts (and similar results from Podcast Index), a remarkable 26% have produced just a single episode. One and done. That suggests many people fired up their creative juices, especially during the pandemic, and stopped after creating one episode. Roughly 1/4th of all podcasts are out of business, or more likely, were never really in it. Sure, there might be some that only planned a single episode but for our x-ray, let’s drop the number of podcasts down by 26% – which means there are roughly 1.5 million (1.48m) podcasts with two or more episodes. That’s a big difference. Let’s go a bit further. Let’s use three or fewer episodes as a mark. That rockets the number up to an astonishing 44% of all podcasts… If a ‘real podcast’ is a series of at least four episodes, that effectively reduces the total of two million podcasts to 880,000.
Check It Out: No, They’re Aren’t Really Two Million Shows on Apple Podcasts
I think the stat I read was about 30,000 active within the last year. Even that is an enormous amount of content, on almost any subject. Can’t help but think the supposed “stuff-up” with podcasts registering since 14.5 shipped, is in fact a purge of abandoned podcasts on Apple’s part. Having given up stewardship of the podcast directory, independent podcasters can be thankful there’s an open source, non-profit podcast directory to serve the community. Overcast jumped ship the day it happened. Others will follow, and Apple will become a niche catering to big media, and basically of no interest to podcast listeners anymore.