Apple announced that they are adding top-level categories, such as Fiction, History, and True Crime, this summer, as well as dozens of new subcategories. Podcasters may want to read Apple’s list to see if their shows will be affected by the changes.
PodNews put together a detailed list of the changes to the podcast categories. Their list is the updated July categories, which were slightly changed from the original announcements. I’m not going to copy their entire list here, but will point out some categories that have been removed.
The entire Games & Hobbies category has been removed and renamed Leisure. As a result, the following subcategories have been removed: Automotive, Aviation, Hobbies, Other Games, Video Games. (Automotive, Aviation, Hobbies, and Video Games have been moved to Leisure.)
The entire Government & Organizations category has been removed and renamed Government. As a result, the following subcategories have been removed: Local, National, Non-Profit, Regional.
The News & Politics category has been removed and renamed News. Politics is one of the subcategories in the renamed News section.
The entire Sports & Recreation category has been removed and renamed Sports. Under the Sports category, the following subcategories have been removed: Amateur, College & High School, Professional, Outdoor.
In the Technology Category, Gadgets has been removed. Tech News has been removed and placed under the News Category in a subcategory called Tech News. Podcasting has been removed. Software How To has been removed and placed under the Education category in a subcategory called How To.
UPDATE: According to The Simplecast Blog, Apple is not removing the entire Technology category. It is, however, removing all of the subcategories that were under it. That includes the subcategory called podcasting.
What’s the best category for #podcasting now? I host the Podcast Growth Show, and of course my show had been under #podcasting. Any thoughts as to the “next best” category for this?
That’s a good question, Juergen. I did some more researching on this topic, and it appears that I have made a mistake.
According to The Simplecast Blog, Apple is not removing the Technology category itself. But, it is removing all of the subcategories that were a part of it. Based on this, since you cannot put your podcast into the podcasting subcategory, I recommend putting it into the Technology category.
(I will update this blog post shortly after I post this comment).