Podcasts Are Growing, but That Does Not Necessarily Track for Podcast Apps

Dustin Bluck, developer of Castro: You might have a theory that there’s a funnel and growth in podcasts *must* ultimately be good for the apps. Like YouTube and TikTok introduce people to the concept of podcasts via shorter videos, and as certain users become more enthusiastic about a particular creator or the whole concept, they migrate to specialty apps to ensure they never miss an episode. I like this theory. It’s a good story, but I see very little evidence of this happening. Instead, the apps are largely fighting to retain the same cohort of users who have been using podcast apps since ~2015 while the world moves on. I am curious to know if this is true for apps other than Castro. I do not want to overindex on it alone. However, the growth in video podcasting is a limiter for third-party apps. One of the problems with available stats like those from Buzzsprout and Transistor is that, because they track RSS feeds of podcasts delivered through their platforms, they do not include…