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 to about an hour, 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, it's available immediately for listening. We publish updates to your podcast's RSS feed and to your ZenCast media player right away.
The next step relies on each app or listening platform to take note of those changes and publish them. 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.
This sometimes means you'll encounter delays while waiting for your show to update on one platform or another, 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 may 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. 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, there's definitely something not right. Get in touch with us via the live chat bubble or hello@zencast.fm 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: https://podcasters.apple.com/support/838-refresh-a-podcast
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 they delay is 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 or by emailing hello@zencast.fm and we'll see if there's something happening at ZenCast that could be causing a delay.
Lastly - get 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. There's nothing wrong with getting in touch with them at the same time you've messaged us, they may be able to resolve the issue before we can!