New Apple Podcasts HLS Hosts, Targeting Podcasting's Holdouts, & More

Author

Gavin Gaddis
March 27th, 2026

by Gavin Gaddis

Spring is in the air! As the Midwest comes alive in that brief, blissful moment of good weather before mosquitos return, let’s look back at this week’s news.

 On March 25, Apple launched iOS 26.4, which includes the new HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) upgrade to Apple Podcasts. iPhones will receive the update over the coming weeks, but Podnews offers a handy link to Apple’s guide for forcing an iOS update. 

Building on the first two batches of hosting platforms with HLS support — Acast, Art19, Omny Studio, SiriusXM Media, AdsWizz, Simplecast, Transistor, Audiomeans, Podbean, Captivate, RSS.com, and Podigee — Apple announced another round of hosting platforms: Podspace, Riverside, Ausha, and Firstory. 

On Mastodon, John Spurlock reports that 48 podcasts supported HLS video on launch day, with 31 of those hosted by Acast. Podnews reports that, as of Wednesday, the Apple Podcasts web app now supports full video, but the macOS app and Apple TV do not yet support HLS video podcasts.

Tom Webster debuts new research in this week’s Sounds Profitable article. Drawing from the Podcast Landscape survey of over 5,000 Americans weighted to the U.S. census, The Last Quarter examines the 25% of adults 18+ who have never listened to a podcast. 

Podcasting’s holdouts skew older and female. 61% are aged 55+, unlike both the U.S. population as a whole and the makeup of podcasting’s audience. 58% of the holdouts are women. 13% of the holdouts identify as having Hispanic or Latino origins, with 48% of that group saying they are most proficient in Spanish (another 28% are equally proficient in Spanish and English). The latter detail signals a real Spanish-language opportunity for podcasting if more local content were created — content promoted on the idea of what it can do for the listeners — in Spanish.  

A challenge with reaching convertible sections of the 25% of Americans not consuming podcasts is something Webster calls The Bubble Problem. Since World War II, society in the U.S. has progressed to self-select individuals into increasingly homogeneous communities. If a particular county or town over-indexes for people who don’t consume podcasts, word-of-mouth promotion can’t gain purchase without outside investment in advertising. It’ll take effort to break into that bubble. A quote from Webster’s article:

“[When debuting this data at SXSW], I told the room that this isn’t a story about people who’ve rejected podcasting. It’s a story about people who haven’t been invited yet — or who were invited in a language they didn’t speak, on a platform they don’t use, with a pitch about technology when all they wanted was something good to listen to on the way to work. The correctable gap isn’t awareness. It’s the invitation itself.”

YouTube and Facebook can be powerful tools to reach podcasting’s last quarter: 57% use YouTube, and Facebook is their top social platform by far. Promotional efforts aimed at this group should lead with topics rather than format, as the tech side of podcasting is not a draw to this demographic.

Spangler’s source says on Monday, March 23, 15 employees were laid off in Spotify’s podcasting sector, mostly from The Ringer and Spotify Studios. The Ringer's New York-focused sports podcast New York, New York With John Jastremski is also being canceled. A quote from Spangler’s article:

“The changes are being described internally as helping Spotify’s podcast group focus on improving execution, speed and alignment across teams — and that the layoffs are not about cost-cutting. Spotify is still investing in growth areas in its podcast biz, particularly in multiformat content and video, the source says.”

I’d like to remind readers looking to hire (or be hired) that the Sounds Profitable job board is free for all to use. The board is updated daily with both submitted positions and positions we find out in the wild. 

Just in time for IAB NewFronts, YouTube has released a Gemini-powered suite of tools called Creator Partnerships, formerly known as BrandConnect. The suite aims to help brands easily find the right creators to work with, as well as automate parts of the collaboration process (e.g., matching and campaign management). Five influencer marketing experts tell Digiday they believe Creator Partnerships will particularly benefit low-to-mid-funnel creators aiming to grow business and reach. A quote from Anders Bill, co-founder of influencer marketing platform Superfiliate:

“This is the clearest signal yet that the platforms recognize the operational layer has been the bottleneck. The reason creator marketing hasn’t scaled the way it should isn’t a creator problem or a brand problem; it’s an infrastructure problem.”

Wednesday’s issue of the Publish Press newsletter shares content creator’s reactions to Creator Partnerships, largely citing frustrations with BrandConnect and enthusiasm for smoother brand partnership matching. A welcome tool, given third-party brand partnership services take a percentage of total campaign budgets. Creator Partnerships doesn’t currently take a platform fee. 

Airchecks now available for RON campaigns on Podscribe!

Programmatic audio has always had a transparency gap. You could measure performance, but not always see where your ads actually ran.

Podscribe now surfaces airchecks for run-of-network (RON) campaigns, giving you direct visibility into ad placements across networks.

Here’s what’s new:

  • Verify where your ads actually appeared

  • Access airchecks without show-level targeting

  • Get built-in brand safety + competitive insights

Powered by smarter matching and expanded transcription, this brings a new level of clarity to programmatic audio.

If you’ve been asking “where did my ads run?”—now you have answers.

Quick Hits

While they may not be top story material, the articles below from this week are definitely worth your time: