New Apple Podcasts Podcast Categories

What is happening?

Apple recently announced that they are updating and changing their list of podcast categories. Going forward, when publishing new podcasts with Cast, we'll provide you with the updated category list to select your podcast's categories from. If you've previously published a podcast with Cast, you may want to update your podcast categories to best make use of the new category list.

What are the new categories?

Apple has published a full list podcast categories on Podcasts Connect.

How does this affect me?

If you've published a podcast with Cast prior to July 2019, you will have published your podcast using the older category list. Apple has stated that the older list of categories remains valid for the time being, but you may want to log in to Cast's Publisher and update the selected categories for your podcast. When editing your podcast's categories, any previous categories you've selected that no longer exist will not be shown. The category dropdown list you see consist solely of the new categories Apple now supports.

Any changes or updates to your podcast's feed that don't involve your podcast's categories won't affect whatever categories you currently have selected. Until you view and update your podcast's categories, they will be left as-is.

If you haven't published a podcast yet, this doesn't affect you at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to do anything?

Even if you've published a podcast with the old categories, you don't necessarily need to update them immediately. Apple has stated that the old category list will be supported for a period of time.

Do new feeds automatically use the new category list?

Yep, all new feeds going forward will ask you to select from Apple's new category list.

Where can I see the whole list?

Here.

Will Cast changed my podcast categories automatically?

No. Cast will not change your podcast's categories unless you view and save your podcast's category settings in Cast's Publisher. For the time being, Apple has stated that the previous category list will continue to be supported. We'll leave your category selections as-is unless you explicitly elect to change them.

That being said, the Publisher's category lists have now changed to reflect the newly supported list of categories, so there is no way going forward to set your podcast's category to a now-removed category.