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• Far from being a friend of podcast creators, Apple and Google are making money from an ad-skipping podcast app, Podnews can reveal today. The app, called Podtastic, takes podcasts and automatically skips the ads on-device, charging $9.99 a month - none of which goes to creators, but up to 30% goes direct to Google and Apple's own app stores. Automatically skipping the ads in this way means that advertising won't work, and creators will see lower renewals and unhappier advertisers; but because the skipping takes place on-device, US case law suggests that the behaviour of the app could be considered legal, if clearly unethical.
  • Podnews reported this app to Apple on July 22; but Apple's legal team required us to deal directly with Ben Bowler, the developer. You may remember "Adventurer and Startup Founder" Bowler, who we covered in January as the author of a similar app which we reported had closed in May. But Bowler has learnt from our reporting: his new app now spoofs the user-agent of Apple's Safari, which is apparently quite acceptable under Apple's App Store rules, to circumvent blocking by podcast hosting companies. And, because the requests come from the user's device, it's technically unblockable.
  • Neither Apple, nor Google, have taken any action against this app - so these companies can continue collecting the 30% app fee. Never mind that creators will see less money, long-term, from their advertisers - the richest companies in the world still need to get richer.
• Exclusive: The ABC News Podcast Network and 20/20 have announced a new podcast series about one of the most daring jewel thefts in history - Heist at the Louvre. Hosted by James Longman, the trailer is available now, and it starts on Monday.
• Last week, LiveOne bought back more than $4m of shares in its spinoff business PodcastOne. PodcastOne went public in Sep 2023, after separating from LiveOne in Dec 2022. LiveOne has reduced its workforce to 80 employees from 350, partially after Tesla stopped giving free access to LiveOne's radio services as part of its Premium Connectivity solution. The release suggests that PodcastOne could consolidate once more into LiveOne (which could save $3mn a year).
  • PodcastOne proudly states in financial reports - like the Q2/26 report published last month - that its free podcast hosting company, LaunchpadOne, is a "talent pool for us to find new podcasts". However, LaunchpadOne appears to have closed more than a year ago: its website was shuttered in mid-July 2025, and some highlighted podcasts are now hosted elsewhere. A material misstatement in an SEC filing is illegal. PodcastOne didn't return requests for comment (though we were left in cc as the company worked out what to tell us).
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