Rob Greenlee

Spotify Supporting Apple’s HLS Video Shift Shows Apple Podcasts Still Moves the Podcasting Market

By Rob Greenlee

Spotify’s decision to support Apple Podcasts’ HLS video streaming approach is a bigger signal than it may first appear.

On the surface, this looks like a practical product update. Spotify for Creators and Megaphone need to support Apple’s new HLS video publishing workflow, so Spotify-hosted creators can publish video podcasts into Apple Podcasts without having to rebuild their whole setup on a different platform to get video into Apple Podcasts. Spotify has said that support for both Spotify for Creators and Megaphone is coming later this year, and that it is working with Apple on the integration.

But underneath that announcement is a much larger industry reality. Apple Podcasts remains the market mover in podcasting. When Apple changes something meaningful in podcasting, the industry aligns around it very quickly. That has been true since the early days of the iTunes podcast directory, and it remains true now. YouTube is massive. Spotify is powerful. Both are major forces in video, discovery, audience behavior, and creator monetization. But neither one has historically been able to shift the core technical direction of podcasting the way Apple can.

Apple’s move to support HLS video podcasts inside Apple Podcasts is not just another video feature. It is a market shift signal.

Apple is saying that video podcasting needs to work more like modern streaming media while still preserving the podcast model that creators, hosting companies, and listening platforms have built around for two decades.

Apple describes the new HLS video experience as allowing listeners to switch between audio and video, view horizontally, download video for offline viewing, and continue using existing podcast features, such as follows and downloads. Apple also says creators can monetize through sponsorships and dynamic advertising, including video ads provided by the creators’ hosting platform.

Since 2005, video podcasting has been available in Apple Podcasts as an MP4 video download via RSS, while non-RSS-based video distribution has gained traction on platforms like YouTube, which support video. Spotify has had video podcasts via direct upload, like YouTube, with a few API based submission processes.

Below is Apple iTunes Podcasts page on MAC and Windows.

Below is a screenshot of the Microsoft Zune Marketplace software on Windows from 2011.

Apple is not new to video podcasts, as well as the early (2007-2014) Microsoft Zune supported Video Podcasts (see image above); Apple has supported video since the earliest years of podcasting, when they were a significant part of the medium, with most mainstream media companies, large and small, supporting video podcasts via RSS, like HBO, Showtime, CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, and most others you can think of. Independent creators like Ask a Ninja and startups like Revision3 and TWIT.TV.

But since about 2014, video has not been central to the Apple Podcasts app, making it hard to discover it there today. Video podcasting was there but not treated as a first-class media experience in the Apple ecosystem, and thus declined in popularity as audio podcasts became dominant.

Now Apple and Apple Podcasts are moving video podcasting into a more modern HLS streaming framework, the same method YouTube uses to stream video.

All the above is why Spotify’s support for Apple’s HLS video publishing workflow is not optional. It is required if Spotify wants Megaphone and Spotify for Creators to remain competitive in podcast hosting.

Spotify cannot afford to be in a position where a creator using Spotify’s own hosting tools has a harder time publishing video to Apple Podcasts than a creator using Acast, ART19, Omny Studio, Transistor, Podigee, Libsyn, Blubrry, iHeart, or other hosting providers that have moved quickly into Apple’s HLS video workflow. Apple’s support materials already tell creators to work with a hosting provider that supports video via HLS on Apple Podcasts.

So Spotify had to move.

That does not mean Spotify suddenly became a fully open podcasting infrastructure company. Spotify has always been a bit of a rebel in the podcasting market. It often adopts podcasting approaches that shift the advantage toward Spotify’s own platform, app experience, audience data, and monetization systems. That is not always bad. Spotify has pushed the market forward in some areas, especially around video adoption and creator monetization inside its own ecosystem.

But Spotify has not typically been the company that aligns the whole podcasting industry around open, cross-platform technical standards.

Apple still plays that industry leadership role more than anyone else.

The next big question is whether Spotify stops at supporting Apple’s HLS publishing workflow or goes further.

Will Spotify add HLS video streaming support via RSS using an Alternative Enclosure or a similar pass-through model, so video stream links can flow beyond Apple Podcasts into other podcast apps and platforms?

That is the question that matters now.

If Megaphone and Spotify for Creators can support HLS video for publishing into Apple Podcasts, could they also support HLS video links inside RSS for external podcast consumption platforms like iHeart, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Fountain, and other apps that may want to support video playback in a more modern way?

That would be a much bigger move.

It would mean Spotify is not only supporting Apple’s new video podcast workflow because it has to. It would mean Spotify is helping make HLS video distribution more available across the broader podcast ecosystem. Really helping the broader industry to actually innovate in the RSS feed they have spent years criticizing was not happening.

The Alternative Enclosure concept matters because podcasting has long been built around the RSS media file enclosure model. Traditionally, that meant an audio file, often an MP3, delivered as a downloadable media file. For years, video podcasts have often meant an MP4 file. But modern video distribution does not really want to live solely in a giant downloadable-file model anymore.

HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, breaks video into adaptive streaming segments. It is the way much of modern video delivery already works across the streaming media world. It can adapt to bandwidth. It can create a better user experience. It can open up better advertising possibilities. It can improve playback reliability. It can make video podcasting feel less like downloading a file and more like a contemporary media experience.

That is where podcasting is heading: Video-First.

The download model has served podcasting incredibly well. It gave podcasting its open distribution foundation. It allowed creators to publish once and reach many apps. It gave the medium independence from a single-platform gatekeeper, was simple, and took advantage of the limited bandwidth of the earlier medium-birth era that has now passed.

But as the industry moves deeper into video, dynamic video and audio ad insertion, cross-device (screen sizes) consumption, and seamless listen-to-watch and watch-to-listen behavior, the old download-first model is increasingly looking outdated as both the central delivery method and the metrics, too.

That does not mean RSS goes away. It means RSS has to evolve.

Podcasting needs to preserve the creator-controlled, open distribution layer while allowing modern media delivery, such as HLS, underneath it. That is the real importance of Apple’s HLS move. Apple is not adding video, as they have had video all along. Apple is forcing the hosting industry to rethink how podcast video and increasingly audio should be delivered, monetized, measured, and experienced.

Then everyone else has to respond. That is the cascade effect.

Hosting platforms have to support HLS publishing workflows. Ad tech platforms have to think about video and audio ad insertion differently. Metrics providers have to account for streams, downloads, plays, watch behavior, and hybrid listening/viewing sessions. Podcast apps have to decide whether they remain audio-only experiences or become richer show-consumption platforms. Creators have to decide whether their shows are audio-first, video-first, or multi-format, adapting to where the audience is.

Podcast Consumers will not care about the technical details. They will just expect the experience to work.

They will expect to start listening in the car, continue watching on a tablet, pick up later on a desktop, and still feel like it is the same show, because it is. Apple’s HLS video podcast experience is clearly aimed at that kind of seamless consumption behavior.

This is where podcasting becomes less about podcast media files and more about consuming shows at scale.

I have been saying for a while that podcasting is moving into a broader show-based media era. Audio is still core. Audio remains the most intimate and flexible format.

Video is now central to discovery, trust, audience connection, and monetization. The question is not whether video belongs in podcasting. It does. The question is whether the podcasting ecosystem can support video without simply handing everything over to YouTube, Spotify, or any other closed platform.

That is why Apple’s move matters.

Apple Podcasts is the only major podcast platform with sufficient market power to drive the industry toward a more modern technical layer while keeping podcasting connected to RSS-based distribution and creator-controlled publishing.

Spotify’s support for Apple HLS video is a practical business decision. Megaphone and Spotify for Creators need to stay competitive. But it is also an acknowledgment that Apple still has the power to set the technical direction of podcasting when it chooses to act.

The next test is whether Spotify will support this only where Apple requires it, or help extend HLS video publishing more broadly through RSS pass-through and Alternative Enclosure-style support.

This is where the industry should be watching.

If the HLS video format becomes something Apple supports only through approved hosting integrations, then we have a powerful new Apple Podcasts video layer.

If HLS video becomes something that can travel through RSS in a broader, interoperable way, then podcasting takes a much bigger step toward a modern open media future.

That second path is the one that could change everything.

It could impact consumers, creators, hosting companies, monetization systems, metrics standards, and listening/viewing platforms.

It could also finally move podcasting beyond the limits of the download model while preserving the open publishing spirit that made podcasting matter in the first place.

Spotify’s support for Apple’s HLS video shift is not just about Spotify. It is about Apple once again moving the podcasting market, and the rest of the industry deciding how open, modern, and creator-controlled the next era of podcasting will be.

About the Author
Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair, a global new media leader who bridges podcasting’s human roots with its AI-driven future. As founder of Trust Factor Lab and host of the “New Media Show” and “Spoken Human”, Rob helps creators start, grow, monetize, and future-proof their content. He’s held leadership roles at Microsoft, Spreaker, Libsyn, StreamYard, and PodcastOne, and serves as Chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame. Learn more at RobGreenlee.com and join the Trust Factor Lab Creator/Podcast Services.

Personal note: I used AI tools to help organize this article and hand-edited it; the views, clarifications, responsibility, and industry perspective are mine. I have been working in podcasting and platform adoption for more than two decades, and this article reflects my own position. The original word choice was mine, and so is the clarification.

Why “Fringe” Was the Wrong Word and What I Actually Meant About Podcasting 2.0

By Rob Greenlee

This article provides context about my comments on New Media Show episode 660 with Libsyn CEO Brendan Monaghan, where we discussed Podcasting 2.0, RSS tag adoption, and the gap between innovation and mainstream platform implementation.

During my recent interview conversation with the Libsyn CEO, I used the word “fringe” when discussing Podcasting 2.0 RSS extension tag ideas. That comment in an extended audio clip was played and discussed on “Podnews Weekly Review“, and understandably, it raised concerns in parts of the podcasting 2.0 community, including Dave Jones and Adam Curry on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast. Let me say this clearly. That was not the right word for me to use, and I regret saying it that way.

Not because I am backing away from the broader point I was trying to make, but because the word itself does not reflect how I actually view the work happening in the Podcasting 2.0 and open RSS ecosystem.

The comment came out quickly in a live discussion and did not carry the full context I intended.

What I was trying to describe is something I have repeatedly seen said over the past two decades working with large platforms, hosting companies, and media organizations: there is a real difference between something that is not widely adopted yet and something that is not valuable.

Podcasting 2.0 Innovation Has Real Value

Podcasting 2.0 innovations are valuable. RSS namespace expansion, new tags, and experimentation around monetization, identity, transcripts, funding, and distribution all matter. This is where much of the real innovation in podcasting is happening.

At the same time, many of these capabilities have been around for several years, in some cases for close to five years. That historical context matters. My comment was not about the value of the ideas themselves. It was about the pace and pattern of adoption, especially among larger platforms.

When I used the word “fringe,” I was referring to the broader set of emerging and evolving tag ideas within the Podcasting 2.0 initiative.

There are many tags and concepts at different stages of maturity, market fit, timing, and implementation. Not all of them have broad agreement or adoption, even within standards-focused efforts like the Podcast Standards Project. From a product and platform perspective, this creates a spectrum of adoption rather than one unified standard that everyone has fully embraced.

What I Was Trying to Say

What I meant is that market fit and timing play a major role in what gets adopted at scale. Larger podcasting platforms tend to move more deliberately. Their decisions are shaped by user experience, engineering resources, monetization models, product stability, support complexity, and business priorities.

That often means only a subset of new capabilities gets integrated into mainstream products at any given time.

That has been the pattern over the past several years.

But it is also important to say this pattern is changing.

Momentum Started Very Slow, But Is Building

Over the past year or so, we have started to see real momentum around some Podcasting 2.0 tags and capabilities. More platforms are experimenting. More tools are supporting them. More creators are becoming aware of what is possible and how these features can be used in real workflows.

That has been great to see.

I believe we will continue to see more adoption of certain RSS tags as platforms, tools, and creators find clearer ways to integrate them into everyday use.

Some Tags Are Seeing More Adoption

You can already see this progression in parts of the ecosystem.

Tags like transcript, chapters, and person have seen meaningful adoption because they provide immediate and understandable value. The Alternative Enclosure tag is being more widely adopted across platforms, too. They improve accessibility, discovery, context, and creator attribution.

The funding tag has gained traction within parts of the ecosystem, especially among creators and platforms exploring alternative monetization models. The value tag, which supports value-for-value and streaming payment models, has been adopted within specific apps and communities, though it has struggled more recently and has not yet become mainstream across larger platforms.

Other tags and ideas are still at an earlier stage. Some are being tested. Some are evolving. Some are still looking for the right use case that will drive broader adoption.

That is what I meant by a spectrum of innovation.

Innovation and Adoption Are Not the Same Thing

Podcasting operates across two layers simultaneously.

There is an innovation layer, where developers, independent platforms, and forward-thinking creators create and test new ideas. Then there is a platform layer, where those ideas are evaluated, prioritized, supported, and integrated into products used by millions of people. The gap between those two layers is where much of the tension comes from.

I have seen this pattern many times. Podcasting itself began outside the mainstream.

Mobile listening took time to become the default. Video podcasting has gone through multiple cycles before finding its current role. Programmatic advertising in audio took years to mature. Innovation usually moves faster than adoption. Adoption follows when user demand, product fit, creator benefit, and business alignment come together.

That is where many Podcasting 2.0 capabilities have been.

My View of Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project

I also want to be clear that Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project are not the same thing. They overlap in some areas, but they do not necessarily embrace every tag or idea in the same way.

That is part of the larger point

When standards-oriented efforts evaluate which capabilities to support, it shows that this is not simply a question of innovation versus resistance. It is about maturity, usefulness, interoperability, timing, and market fit. That is the context I was trying to convey, though I did not do so well at the time.

I Respect the Podcasting 2.0 Community

So when I used the word “fringe,” I was trying to describe how some organizations have historically perceived ideas that had not yet reached scale or product integration. But I understand how that word sounded dismissive of Podcasting 2.0, and that is not how I really see it.

I respect and appreciate the innovation and work happening through PodcastIndex.org, Podcasting 2.0, and the broader open podcasting community, including the work and advocacy of Adam Curry, Dave Jones, Daniel J. Lewis, and many others.

The opportunity now is to build on the momentum emerging and move the most valuable ideas toward broader adoption. That means making these capabilities easier to use, improving listener experiences, aligning them with sustainable business models, and demonstrating clear value at scale.

That is how innovation moves from experimentation into everyday use.

My Role in the Conversation

I do not want to frame this as one side versus another. I am focused on helping connect what is being built with what is actually being adopted and used at scale.

That is the conversation we are having every week on the “New Media Show“. Join us LIVE on Weds, 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, or on demand in all the podcast apps and live on YouTube.com/@robgreenlee, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, and X.com

So, yes, I regret the word “Fringe” I used. But I stand by the broader point that there has been a gap between innovation and adoption in podcasting over the past several years.

The good news is that momentum is building, and that gap is starting to close. That is where the real opportunity is for all of us in this industry.

2016 Podcasting and Radio Predictions

I see that 2016 will bring continued and steady growth in the on demand audio and podcast markets though with some consolidation of larger players.

I do see a danger of expectations outpacing the realities around the adoption of on demand audio and podcasting by radio groups and stations.

Radio and Podcasting/On Demand audio will converging more in 2016, but the pace of this convergence between radio and podcasting is a 5+ year evolving direction as radio continues its slow decline and on demand / podcasts grows in listeners and content producers. So, don’t expect huge progress this coming year.

Content will continue to rule this era in the podcasting and on demand audio market. I do fear the buzz in the media about podcasting is creating a level of unrealistic expectations for the podcasting market. The very few are benefiting from this heightened attention to our disruptive medium called “Podcasting”.

We are still early in having one or many major distribution and listening platforms that really are offering the compete solution that will take this medium to the next level. This will happen as more investment comes into the medium and innovative companies can innovate more. We are seeing the beginnings of this with a few companies, but we are still a few years away and many millions of dollars short.

I still think that podcast listening and download measurement is still too fragmented in the market. This is holding back the market as many companies are trying to own measurement as a competitive feature. This must change and we all get on the same measurement standard for the advertising revenue scale into the billions.

Watch me talk about 2016 predictions below in this past Saturday’s New Media Show episode.

New Media Show #109: Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee Chat Podcasting

Todd Cochrane (@GeekNews) and Rob Greenlee (@RobGreenlee) discuss the challenges of some of the new podcasting platforms when it comes to live integration for the show. The new Triton announcement by Blubrry. They also discuss a recent Westwood One “State of American Podcasting” webinar and some of the shared data points.

Catch a new Live episode this coming Saturday, November 28th at 9am PST at New Media Show Live.