The Diary of a CEO, by Steven Bartlett, reached 21.3 million subscribers on YouTube, surpassing The Joe Rogan Experience to become the most subscribed podcast on the platform. It added more than 1 billion views between January and October. Of all those views, 261 million (or 23%) came through audio tracks in other languages, led by Spanish.

Why it matters: The language barrier to consuming podcasts keeps getting smaller. The most famous podcasts in English are translated into several languages thanks to AI, competing for audiences' time. If your podcast works in another language and translation would open the doors to other audiences and markets, it may be worth exploring.

A finding from the report The Video Podcast Consumer Report by Edison Research with SiriusXM and Publicis Media found that 70% of monthly podcast consumers listened to one audio-only and watched one on video in the past month. When asked what do they do while they listen, more than half say they're out and about, working, cleaning the house or exercising. When asked what they do when they want to learn, be entertained or feel connected to a host, video wins.

Why it matters: People consume in two ways, and it depends on what they're doing. Think about what your audience is doing while they listen to you, especially if you do video, since it needs to make sense without looking at a screen.

That's what a study published in the academic journal Political Behavior found. The study, titled “Does Listening to Trustworthy News Affect Political Attitudes and Trust?” asked a group of people to subscribe to Up First, NPR's daily news podcast. They found that listening increased listeners' knowledge of current events and trust in news podcasts. The study also suggests that people retain the information they heard.

It's worth noting that Up First is a podcast of news reporting and analysis, not commentary. Even so, it's a good argument for news podcasts.

The word ‘pódcast’ has been included in the 24th edition of the dictionary of the Spanish language by the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy). Since it's a word stressed on the second-to-last syllable that ends in a consonant cluster, the RAE says it takes an accent mark. The plural can be ‘los pódcast’ or ‘los pódcasts’. It also recommends ‘podcastero’ or ‘podcastera’ for those of us who make podcasts.

A total of 29 awards and 4 special mentions are the result of the 73rd edition of the Ondas awards in Spain. The awards will be presented on November 26 in Barcelona. The awards opened a podcast-specific category called Premios Ondas Nacionales de Pódcast (National Podcast Ondas Awards) (a decision that was heavily criticized when it was announced). Among the winners are:

RSS.com users will be able to receive voice messages of up to one minute from their audience using a special link. You record it, review it, enter your email, get a code, paste the code and you're done. The code ensures that no one can send a message using your name or email.

Want to try it? Leave us a voice message with your comment on any of today's stories here and we'll play it on Qué Está Pasando en el Podcasting (in Spanish).

Writing on their blog, the folks at Libsyn talk about how to evaluate the experience of a new listener to our podcast. They reference data from The Podcast Study 2026 report, which says 36% of the audience leaves a new podcast because it starts with unnecessary chatter and 25% because of too much off-topic talk. To evaluate the experience, they recommend:

Some people will listen to their favorite podcasters no matter what, but if we want to reach new people, we have to make it easy for them. It's important to keep in mind the experience of everyone who listens to us