Podchaser Broadens Transcripts To 150,000 Podcasts In Push Beyond Top-Tier Shows.

Podchaser is expanding its podcast transcript coverage from the top 20,000 podcasts to roughly 150,000 shows, a 7.5-times increase that the company says reflects the long trail of content that previously had no searchable transcript available. The move will not only impact new episodes released. Podchaser says it will also provide transcripts published since Jan. 1, 2021. That backfill is expected to be completed by mid-May. The move only impacts English-language podcasts.

“Podcasts are where a lot of the most important conversations happen,” Podchaser says in the announcement. “The problem: until now, we only transcribed the top 20,000 English podcasts. That misses most of the long tail, which is where high-value, non-obvious conversations cluster: independent finance commentary, vertical B2B podcasts, health practitioner shows, regional industry pods, scene-specific culture pods.”

To select the shows that are being transcribed, Podchaser is leaning into its Power Score. That is its composite popularity rating which factors more than 30 different data points, including chart positions, listener engagement, social reach, and production consistency. But the company is going with nearly the lowest number possible, requiring that a show has a score of “one” or better — its floor for “meaningful audience” that effectively just cuts shows with no listeners from receiving transcripts. It also notes that several enterprise clients had explicitly asked for expanded coverage.

Podchaser says a small number of episodes will be excluded from the move, including those spam or ad-only feeds, music podcasts, “extreme output” feeds — those that publish hundreds of episodes a week.