Podcast Movement 🔜 SXSW, The Big Picture of Apple Podcasts HLS, & More

This week in the business of podcasting:

• Podcast Movement Evolutions has taken over SKYBOX on 6th at SXSW 2026 through Sunday, with no badge or ticket required, featuring live tapings tonight from Table Read, Scalable Podcast, and Broken Record with special guest Maya Hawke, and tomorrow night's Companion Presents: In Good Company event with Penn Badgley and a headliner set from Andy Grammer.
• Sounds Profitable founder Bryan Barletta argues Apple Podcasts' HLS announcement returns control to hosting platforms and opens the door for rights holders across music, film, and other industries to adopt RSS-inspired distribution.
• Bumper's Jonas Woost shares data built from over 100,000 podcast episode listener retention data. He finds listeners complete 76% of an average podcast episode, with retention trending downward the longer an episode lasts.
• A new Acast Podcast Pulse report from Singapore finds 97% of local listeners say a podcast has changed their mind on a topic versus a global median of 84%, with podcasters rating higher on credibility than journalists, Youtubers, and social-first talent.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode of the Recap, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.