The short answer
The short answer here is that you should see new episodes and changes showing on most listening apps, most times, within a few minutes of publishing them on ZenCast, and occasionally a little bit longer.
The long answer
As with most things in podcasting, the full answer is a bit more complicated.
Once you publish a show episode on ZenCast, we immediately make it available in your podcast's ZenCast media player.
It's also immediately available for all listening apps that your show is published to (eg Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc) when they scan your podcast's RSS feed for updates. You can think of the RSS feed as an information file about your show... we publish new information in that file, and then it's up to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc to regularly read the file and take note of changes and updates.
Typically, most listening apps scan this file every few minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. However, sometimes those listening apps will have their own delays and not scan for an update for a little longer than usual, meaning your new episode might not show right away, even though the update was instantly applied at ZenCast.
So how long before my new podcast episode shows up?
Episodes regularly showing up on listening apps any time in the first hour would be completely normal and not considered a delay at all, and you might occasionally see this taking 2 or 3 hours.
If new episodes are taking 6-12 hours to appear, this would be considered a delay but might be a one-off and probably nothing to worry about. Keep an eye out the next time you publish an episode and let us know if this becomes a repeating pattern.
If it takes 24 hours or more for your new episodes to show, this could mean something isn't right. Get in touch with us via the live chat bubble and we'll take a look.
What can I do to make my new episodes show on Apple or Spotify sooner?
With many podcasting platforms, it's a case of waiting until they do their part and read the RSS feed for changes. Most platforms will read your RSS feed somewhere between every few minutes and every few hours.
In Apple's case, there is a "Refresh" button you can use to speed things up in Apple Podcasts Connect, and they give some guidance about using it here.
I'm getting repeated delays when publishing new episodes, how can I fix this?
First, make a note of each time this happens, including:
- What device/OS you're seeing the delay on
- What platform/app the delay is happening on
- The episode name/number (and link if possible)
- How many hours delay between publishing on ZenCast and the episode showing on the platform
Next - Let us know! Get in touch using the chat bubble and we'll check if anything at ZenCast could be causing a delay.
Sometimes everything might be published correctly at ZenCast, and there could be an issue with the listening app. In these cases we recommend getting in touch with the platform's help channels directly. You may need to be logged in, for example at Spotify for Podcasters, or Apple Podcasts Connect, for them to recognize that you're a podcaster and not a listener and take a look at your issue.