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Why we’re closing down the Acast listening app
Why we’re closing down the Acast listening app
2022.05.18
A few months ago we announced that we’ll be closing down our listening app. For us, it’s a no-brainer. We’re proud champions of what many call “open” podcasting, and our core focus as a team is helping more podcasters find more listeners and make more money.
We believe that, in order for podcasters to be able to do that, they should be able to find those listeners anywhere and everywhere. It’s why we, as a hosting and monetization platform, work with every podcast listening app out there to ensure that out 47,000 podcasts appear on their platforms – be it Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts or anywhere else. Some want to lock entire shows behind paywalls, but that’s not what we believe in.
So you can see why having our own listening app is a bit of a conflict in our mission. It’s served us brilliantly over the past eight years, and we’re flattered by the comments and messages we’ve received since announcing the closure. A lot of people have really enjoyed using our app, but it’s time to really focus that expertise and energy into doing what we do best: providing podcasters and advertisers with the very best tools and services to help them connect with listeners, everywhere.
Once a leading source of data for us, the app has long been overtaken by the rich insight we get from things like the many thousands of listeners signed up to our Acast+ paid membership features.
Acast itself is not going anywhere – far from it. We continue at the very heart of the podcast industry as the leading hosting and monetization platform for podcasters and advertisers — championing this open ecosystem, attracting the best and broadest podcasts to our global network, feeding them data and insight, helping them grow, matching them with the perfect advertisers, and connecting them with listeners who want to enjoy their shows and support them financially.
And we’ll be doing that as a truly independent force – with no ties to any specific listening app.
Practically, we’ve put together a range of resources to help listeners easily find a new app to continue to listen to their shows, as well as instructions for any Acast+ subscribers on how to make sure you can easily carry on accessing your paid-for content on any listening app too:
- Switching from the Acast Listening App
- Which podcast listening app should I use?
- Where can I listen to my Acast+ shows?
- Listening to your Acast+ Subscription(s) in your favorite App
In some ways it’s the end of an era – thank you Acast app and its loyal users for everything — but it’s the start of an even better, more focused and open phase for us, and for podcasting.