The Washington Post FAILURE
I read Victor Tangemann’s reporting on the Washington Post’s AI-generated podcast experiment with a mix of disbelief and grim recognition. The article lays out how leadership pushed the product live even after internal tests showed most of it was unpublishable, riddled with errors and bias. My first takeaway is concern: more companies will see this and still rush headlong into AI-generated podcasts, mistaking speed and cost-cutting for innovation. My second takeaway is satisfaction, at least for now, that audiences and newsrooms are rejecting this kind of synthetic content outright. But the damage is not neutral. Every bad AI podcast still pulls attention, time, and discovery away from thoughtful independent shows that are doing the real work, and that makes this trend dangerous even when it fails.
Castro Takes Action to Protect Podcast Discovery from Deceptive AI Flooding
Castro is taking a clear stand to protect listeners by actively removing deceptive, AI-generated podcasts that are intentionally flooding search results and misleading users. By permanently hiding content traced to Inception Point AI while still allowing intentional access via RSS, they are striking a thoughtful balance between user choice and platform integrity. This proactive move shows Castro is paying attention to emerging risks in podcast discovery and is willing to evolve its safeguards as the ecosystem changes.
I loved Tom Webster’s observations recently in a Sounds Profitable blog. He noted nearly 1 in 6 Americans has tried to be a podcaster at some point (Wow). But of those only 12% are currently active creators. He noted the well-known term “Podfade” should actually be considered “Creator Fade.”
I know the holidays and the new year are often a time we give our ideas a rethink and while a lot of new podcasts get launched in January, a lot podcasts (a lot of GOOD ones), quietly just fade out. If that’s you this year… just a nudge of encouragement. Step away if you need to, don’t burn out. But that show you’ve started or grown is probably waaay better than you think.
What Podcast Apps are People Using the Most?
According to Buzzsprout it’s still Apple Podcasts… and Apple has managed to stretch out its lead over Spotify
Where to Host
Both Riverside and now Patreon have launched RSS-based podcast hosting services free to customers.
We haven’t tried them yet and none of our 20 clients are using them (yet). Based on our experience with all those podcasts we work with, here’s a quick list of our fave five hosting services (in no particular order):
RSS.Com - unlimited storage and unlimited episode uploads - no cap and no worries
Buzzsprout - sooooo easy to navigate - stellar customer service
CoHost - analytics heaven
Captivate.FM - unlimited storage - UK-based and some of our clients love that
Transistor.FM - can host multiple shows under a single account
We’re lukewarm on a few others but one we’re cold on:
Spreaker (Can’t understand why it’s popular - no access to some of your own episodes - waaay too expensive. Seems to support AI-generated slop)