What Podnews reported
Apple Podcasts has long been distinctive for its editorial teams. Its own guidance for creators says “our global team of editors reviews the ever-growing catalog regularly and hand-curates content”, and that it refreshes the app “at least once a week in most countries or regions”, mostly on Mondays. For shows outside the United States, a local feature on the New page has been one of the few ways to reach listeners who were not already looking for them.
On 2 October Podnews reported, from what it called multiple sources, that this had changed for signed-in users of the app. The Home and New sections now show an algorithmic view “designed to follow what the company calls user types” rather than content targeted by country. A reader in Canada sent Podnews a screenshot of a New section with no Canadian shows above the fold, and said colleagues saw different shows. Producers told Podnews that Apple's feature request form had dropped its option to target a geographic audience in June or July (“It's all global now”), and that it was no longer possible to tell whether a show had been selected for promotion. Apple gave Podnews a statement on background which, Podnews said, suggested that nothing had changed and that its editorial approach remained consistent.
We could not test the signed-in app: doing so needs Apple accounts in several countries, and the view is now personal by design. What we could test is the public page Apple serves for each country's storefront on the web, which is not personalised and which shows what the editors have placed there.
What the six public pages show
On Monday 5 October, between 15:50 and 15:51 UTC, we requested the New page of the Apple Podcasts web player for six storefronts, without signing in, and read the page data each one returned. We counted the editorial shelves: the hero carousel, New Shows, Newly Added Video, New Seasons, New Trailers, Essentials, Unmissable Episodes and the themed collections. We left out the chart shelves (Top Shows, Top Series, the category charts and Trending Episodes), which are ranked rather than chosen, and a generic “More to Discover” list of links. That left 742 entries across the six pages.
Per cent of entries on the public New page, 5 October 2026
Source: Media Morpheus Research, reading of the Apple Podcasts web New page for six storefronts, signed out, 5 October 2026.
An entry is a show, episode or collection on an editorial shelf. Episodes are matched by Apple's episode identifier and shows by its show identifier. Chart shelves are excluded.
The pattern is regional. The US page was the largest and the most self-contained. Australia and New Zealand were nearly one page: the same 13-item hero carousel, the same 20 Essentials, the same 20 New Trailers and 19 of 20 New Seasons. New Zealand's carousel did include New Zealand work, RNZ's Crimes NZ and Newsroom's DELVE, but Australian viewers saw the same carousel.
Number of the 20 shows on each storefront's New Shows shelf that also appear on the other's, 5 October 2026
Source: Media Morpheus Research, reading of the Apple Podcasts web New page for six storefronts, signed out, 5 October 2026.
Every storefront's New Shows shelf had 20 shows. The one show Canada shared with each non-US storefront was not the same show in every case.
Canada is the case Podnews's reader raised. On the public page, 14 of Canada's 20 New Shows were also on the American shelf. Among the six that were not were three French-language shows, one from La Presse. Canada's carousel was more local: of its ten items, only two also appeared in the US carousel, and it featured two CBC programmes and a La Presse show. Britain and Ireland were closer than either was to anywhere else, sharing all 16 shows on their video shelf, but Ireland's New Shows shelf was distinctly Irish, with five RTÉ productions, Newstalk and the Irish Sun among its 20.
One shelf cut across all of this. “Unmissable Episodes” carried the same 20 episodes on the Canadian, British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand pages. It is the clearest sign on the public pages of a single selection serving several countries. The US page had no shelf of that name.
How the two pictures fit together
Our reading and Podnews's report are not in conflict. The public page shows what Apple's editors placed in each storefront on one Monday. Podnews describes what signed-in app users are shown, which, on its account, is now chosen per user from a pool that is no longer targeted by country. Both can be true: editors can still build regional pages while the app decides, for each user, how much of them to show.
What the public pages add is a measure of how national the editorial pool still is. For Australia and New Zealand it is, in effect, one pool; for Britain and Ireland, a shared core with local shelves; for Canada, a local carousel on top of a largely American new-show list. The shared “Unmissable Episodes” shelf fits Podnews's description of feature requests no longer being targeted by geography.
What we cannot say is how many signed-in users see any of this. If the app now personalises Home and New, the public page is closer to a catalogue of candidates than to what most listeners see.
What this means for a show, or a guest
The report and our reading point to the following, which is our interpretation rather than Apple's.
Local promotion on Apple is harder to plan. If feature requests no longer target a country and the app personalises what each user sees, a Canadian or Irish show can no longer count on a national New page reaching national listeners. Podnews quoted a Canadian producer who now gets more Canadian recommendations on Spotify. Being featured is less visible. Producers told Podnews they cannot tell whether a show was selected. The public web pages remain one place to check, as we did, but only for the editorial pool, not for what users were shown. For a company booking guest spots, this changes little. Guests rarely choose a show because Apple featured it. Audience fit, and whether full episodes are published on YouTube and in open feeds, matter more, as we found in whether Netflix is now a podcast platform. Apple's charts, which are ranked rather than curated, are a separate system, described in how podcast charts work.Methodology and limitations
We requested podcasts.apple.com/{storefront}/new for the us, ca, gb, ie, au and nz storefronts on 5 October 2026 between 15:50 and 15:51 UTC, without cookies or an Apple account, and parsed the page data embedded in each response. Shelves were matched by title, plus the untitled hero carousel. Episodes were identified by Apple's episode identifier, shows by its numeric show identifier, and the few items with neither by their title. We excluded chart shelves (Top Shows, Top Series, Top category charts, Trending Episodes) and the “More to Discover” link list, leaving 742 editorial entries. “Unique” means an entry appeared on that storefront's page and on none of the other five. Publisher names were taken from Apple's public lookup service. We also read Podnews's report of 2 October 2026 and Apple's creator page “Four tips for getting featured on Apple Podcasts”, both on 5 October 2026; Podnews's sources and Apple's background statement are reported as Podnews gave them. Five limitations apply. This is one snapshot on one day; pages are refreshed at least weekly and our comparison says nothing about how they looked before. The web player may not match the app, and the signed-in app, which is what Podnews describes, was not tested. Six English-language storefronts are not all of Apple's markets. Matching by identifier treats a show and one of its episodes as different entries, so overlap between a show shelf and an episode shelf is not counted. And the nationality of a show is not recorded by Apple; where we describe shows as Canadian, Irish or New Zealand, we rely on the publisher's name.
Conclusion
Apple Podcasts has not stopped curating, and on its public pages it has not stopped curating differently for different markets. But on 5 October those markets were regions rather than countries: Australia and New Zealand shared all but a handful of their editorial picks, Britain and Ireland shared a core, Canada's new-show list was mostly the American one, and one shelf of 20 episodes was identical across five countries. Podnews's report that the signed-in app now personalises Home and New, and that feature requests no longer target a country, describes a further step we could not observe. Taken together, local promotion on Apple looks less like a national shop window and more like a regional pool, from which an algorithm picks for each listener.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Apple Podcasts stopped curating by country?
Not on its public web pages. On 5 October 2026 the New pages for six English-language storefronts still differed, but by region: Australia and New Zealand shared 118 of 124 editorial entries and Canada's new-show shelf shared 14 of 20 shows with the US. Podnews reported on 2 October that signed-in app users now get an algorithmic view instead of a country's picks; we could not test that.
Is the Apple Podcasts New page personalised?
According to Podnews's sources, for signed-in app users it now is, based on what Apple calls user types. Apple, in a background statement to Podnews, suggested nothing had changed. The public web page, viewed without signing in, is not personalised.
Can a podcast still request a feature on Apple Podcasts?
Yes. Apple's creator guidance still describes a feature request form, asks for two weeks' notice and says most updates are published on Mondays. Podnews reported that the form no longer lets a show target a geographic audience.
Do Australia and New Zealand see the same Apple Podcasts page?
On the public web New page on 5 October 2026, almost. They shared 118 of 124 editorial entries, including an identical hero carousel, and New Zealand had only five entries not seen elsewhere.
Are Apple Podcasts charts curated?
No. Charts such as Top Shows are ranked by Apple's systems, not chosen by editors, and differ by country. We excluded them from this comparison.
Does Apple featuring matter for a podcast guest?
Rarely. A guest benefits from the show's existing audience and from episodes being findable on YouTube and in search. Whether Apple featured the show is a secondary factor.
Sources
- live read Apple Podcasts web player, New page for the us, ca, gb, ie, au and nz storefronts, read signed out, 5 October 2026, 15:50–15:51 UTC.
- trade press Podnews, Apple Podcasts algorithm drops country-specific curation, 2 October 2026. Multiple unnamed sources; Apple background statement. Read 5 October 2026.
- platform documentation Apple Podcasts for Creators, Four tips for getting featured on Apple Podcasts. Global editorial team, feature request lead times, weekly refresh. Read 5 October 2026.
- platform documentation Apple, iTunes Search API lookup service, used for publisher names of shows on the New Shows shelves and hero carousels, 5 October 2026.