Would reinstating an old podcast RSS feed help recover our subscribers?

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Would reinstating an old podcast RSS feed help recover our subscribers?

Our podcast recently changed providers. A month ago, we engaged an RSS feed swap in order to complete the transition from our old provider (Podbean) to our new provider (iono.fm). At the time, we had two accounts on iTunes operating simultaneously, one each for our new and old feeds. Our new subscriber told us this would be best for retaining the maximum number of subscribers.

In the process of the RSS feed swap, our old provider mistakenly set their RSS feed to redirect not to the new provider's RSS feed, but to the iTunes store url for the iono.fm acount. This in turn caused nearly 80 percent of our subscribers to stop receiving podcasts, which is still the case. It took us about 3 weeks to discover this was the root of the error. But by the time were able to correct the problem, our old Podbean account had long since disappeared from the iTunes store. And while the Podbean RSS feed now properly redirects to the iono RSS feed, our subscribers are still not receiving new episodes.

From what we can tell, this probably has to do with the fact that iTunes is not reading the Podbean RSS feed any longer (though they have yet to respond to this effect) and is only reading the iono RSS feed. This still leaves 80 percent of our listeners in limbo, with no way of reaching out to them to correct the error.

We're wondering if it would help to reinstate the Podbean account on iTunes and whether this would help us at least reach out to our old subscribers. That seems to be the next logical step, but if anyone has any better ideas/advice, we're all ears.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Jan 5, 2016 7:53 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 5, 2016 8:27 AM in response to WorldPolicy

It's not going to be easy to unravel this one. I don't know why you were told to have two accounts - presumably meaning an iTunes Store page for each version, so in effect two podcasts. All that was needed was for the old feed to contain the itunes:new-feed-url tag redirecting to the new feed, and the Store page and subscribers would have been redirected seamlessly and permanently.

As it is, subscribers to the old feed have now had their iTunes application redirected to a non-functioning address, from which you can't redirect it. Reinstating the iTunes Store page for the old feed isn't really going to help that, apart from the odd subscriber who thinks to investigate by going there.

So your problem lies with people who originally subscribed, and to whom the iTunes Store is irrelevant. The iTunes application cannot make any sense of the iTunes Store page to which they have been redirected, and Apple Support cannot affect users' own iTunes application (they can change the Store to using a different feed, but not subscribers).

If the iTunes Store page for the original version has been taken down by Apple you can't reinstate it at the same URL yourself. If you can have the Podbean feed working then you could ask Support to reinstate that. (I'm still not completely sure you had two separate pages, but if you didn't I'm not clear what 'two accounts' means.) You could try to get Podbean to set up a proper redirect, or simply post an episode with an announcement asking people to resubscribe to the new feed; but this will only work for subscribers who actually go to the trouble of trying to track down the problem. And in any case most of them won't know the URL for this page and so will use Search which should bring up the new version anyway - so I can't say I think there's much point in trying this.

As to subscribers who don't attempt to find the Store page to find out what has gone wrong, I'm afraid there is nothing you can do.

EDIT - still trying to get my head round this. If Podbean redirected by using the itunes:new-feed-url tag (as I assumed) then that's permanent and irreversible. If they used a 301 redirect I'm not clear what happens if they simply take it off. I suspect that it's still permanent and you can't get it back, though I don't know for certain - reinstating the feed and removing a 301 would be your only hope, were it to work (about which I'm dubious).

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Answer 2

WorldPolicy Author

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Jan 5, 2016 8:41 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

To clarify from my last points, you are correct about what I meant concerning having 'two accounts' -- in effect, having 2 podcasts on iTunes. The rest of your diagnosis/assessment appears accurate.

I guess the only part of your response I would clarify is where you say our problem "lies with people who originally subscribed, and to whom the iTunes Store is irrelevant." More specifically, our problem is these subscribers are in limbo, not receiving new episodes, and since we can't really communicate with them anyway, we'd prefer to fix this issue outright (if possible) so they won't have to re-subscribe.

I know for sure that Podbean used a 301 redirect. I also share your uncertainty about our options. But this did help to confirm however little we can do. We're touch with Podbean, iTunes, and iono.fm to see if we can go down this route.

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Answer 3

Jan 5, 2016 8:50 AM in response to WorldPolicy

WorldPolicy wrote:

I guess the only part of your response I would clarify is where you say our problem "lies with people who originally subscribed, and to whom the iTunes Store is irrelevant."

The iTunes Store acts in effect as an agent. Once someone clicks the Subscribe button their own iTunes application reads the feed directly and downloads new episodes automatically. Once this has been done nothing that happens on the iTunes Store page matter, as long as the feed works. The application simply reads the feed directly.

The itunes:new-feed-url tells the application to permanently subscribe to another URL. Once done this can only be reversed by putting the same tag in the new feed, but as the file to which they have been redirected is not an XML file this is not possible.

A 301 redirect also redirects subcribers to a new URL, but server technology is a bit out of my preserve. I have the impression that this is regarded as a permanent instruction, so that removing the 301 will have no effect, but I'm not sure.

So your only hope is reinstating the original feed, making sure there is no 301 in place. However I have my doubts that this will have any effect. You can try it by subscribing manually (From the File menu) in iTunes to the old feed URL and seeing what happens. If when subscribing you see the old feed then a new 301 with the correct URL would solve the problem - except that if it is reversible it would have to be left in place permanently, and if it isn't the whole idea won't work in the first place.

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Answer 4

WorldPolicy Author

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Jan 5, 2016 9:23 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Just tried the advice you gave in the last paragraph. I originally subscribed to our podcast when we debuted a year ago, and the feed had since gone dead around August since I would never listen to it (since I worked so closely developing the episodes anyway). Luckily, I had not tried to update the feed on my iTunes account until just now.

The results are not good -- the feed went nowhere, all the prior episodes disappeared and I was left with the following screen:

Before, it would at least show all of our episodes up through the end of August. Not entirely sure what this means, other than it can't be good.

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Answer 5

WorldPolicy Author

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Jan 5, 2016 10:08 AM in response to WorldPolicy

I actually restarted iTunes, and now it looks like this -- which appears that the 301 redirect is in place:

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Answer 6

Jan 5, 2016 10:15 AM in response to WorldPolicy

It couldn't look like that if it was accessing and iTunes Store web page.

If you would like to post the URL of the original feed I will try at least to detect what is going on.

For reference, your iTunes Store page is at

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/world-policy-on-air-iono/id1060131856?mt=2

and the feed it is using is at:

http://iono.fm/rss/chan/2574

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Answer 7

WorldPolicy Author

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Jan 5, 2016 10:18 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Just want to mention you're the most helpful expert I've reached out to so far, and we couldn't be more grateful for your help. Many, many thanks!

Old feed:

http://worldpolicy.podbean.com/feed/

New feed:

http://iono.fm/rss/chan/2574?p=itunes

iTunes Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/world-policy-on-air-iono/id1060131856?mt=2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/world-policy-on-air-iono/id1060131856?mt=2

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Answer 8

Jan 5, 2016 11:03 AM in response to WorldPolicy

The Podbean URL is redirecting correctly to the new feed. For the moment you don't need to take any action. It is as you say a server redirect, and I don't know what will happen if the redirect is removed. Hopefully once you've allowed a few weeks for all the old subscribers to redirect then everything will continue and they will still be subscribed to the new feed.

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