Turn your feed into a podcast on Apple, Spotify and Deezer: what each one requires
One standard RSS feed, three platforms that do not read it the same way. What Apple refuses outright, what Spotify checks by email, what each one rewrites on its side, and the first real Apple acceptance in September 2026.
Turning your articles into a podcast rests on a single building block: an RSS feed that the platforms know how to read. That is what WeDispatch does, and we explain it in the article on turning your news site into an automatic podcast. But "the platforms know how to read a feed" hides a less smooth reality: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Deezer do not ask the same thing of the same feed, and one will refuse where another accepts. Here is what each requires, read from the code that builds our feed, not from a sales promise.
Apple: three tags, without which nothing goes through
Apple is the strictest of the three, and it sets the bar. A feed with no podcast artwork, no category and no "explicit" flag (is the content suitable for all audiences or not) is refused, no negotiation. We learned this in the most concrete way possible: on the evening of 23 September 2026, Apple Podcasts Connect answered "An error occurred" to our own feed, which did not yet carry a contact address. The feed was then reworked to carry those tags, and the first podcast Apple eventually accepted was called, for lack of settings at the time, "TEF, audio edition," with artwork bearing the account name.
One detail matters on Apple, and it throws people: the platform rewrites, on every read of the feed, whatever you change on its own side. If you edit the description in Apple Podcasts Connect but your feed still carries the old one, Apple will take the feed's version back. The source of truth is the feed. That is why, on the Distribution screen, the editable fields (name, description, author, category, explicit flag, artwork) live inside the feed itself: a field left empty keeps its previous value, and the artwork address carries a version number to force the platforms to re-read a changed image. The artwork, precisely, obeys an Apple rule we apply before sending: at least 1,400 pixels on a side, cropped square, in RGB.
Spotify: verification goes through an email address
Spotify reads the same feed, but adds its own step: to prove the podcast is really yours, it sends a verification code to the contact address declared in the feed, and to no other. No address, no code, no possible claim. That is why our feed carries a contact-address tag, chosen by the customer, separate from the account address: the feed is public, and writing the sign-in address into it would expose it to every bot that reads feeds. If you do not choose a contact address, the tag is simply not written, and Spotify will not be able to send you its code.
Deezer: the same feed, a separate podcasters area
Deezer also reads a standard RSS feed, with no notable requirement of its own beyond what Apple already imposes. You sign up from its podcasters area, where you give the feed address. We do not claim to document every corner of these three platforms, which change their rules without warning; what we do guarantee is that the feed we produce carries what Apple requires, what Spotify checks, and what Deezer re-reads like the others.
What we track for you, without asking
Submitting a feed to Apple means waiting for its crawler to read it, then waiting again for the show to appear in search. During that time, the publisher has no idea where things stand. So the Distribution screen shows the status on Apple without you having to go looking for it: "Apple read the feed" as soon as its crawler passes, then "Live on Apple Podcasts" with the link, once the show is found by Apple's public search. It is a factual piece of information, drawn from what Apple exposes publicly, not an estimate.
In short
Publishing a podcast comes down to an RSS feed, but the three big platforms do not treat it the same way. Apple refuses without artwork, category or explicit flag, and rewrites whatever you change outside the feed. Spotify checks ownership through an email sent to the feed's contact address. Deezer re-reads the same feed from its own area. Our job is to produce a feed that satisfies the strictest of the three, and to show you where Apple stands without your having to watch. For the fine settings of each show, we detail the "one show per section" approach in turn your sections into podcasts, and the module that puts all of this onto an existing site is described on the WordPress page.
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