The popular third-party podcast app Castro seems to have shut down after previously announcing that it was actively looking for a new owner. This news came after rumors surfaced about the company’s impending closure, sparked by a former Castro employee Mohit Mamoria, who stated in November that the app would be shut down within two months.
In a blog post on the now-defunct URL castro.fm, Castro’s team apologized for the app’s downtime due to a recent issue that required extensive work to fix and clarified that any external communication about the app’s future not originating from Castro itself was unofficial and did not represent Castro’s views — an indirect reference to the X post which had prompted numerous media reports about the app’s imminent closure.
The company also acknowledged employee departures and apologized for any unnecessary panic that may have resulted from these conversations. It further mentioned that Castro was seeking new owners for its podcast app to ensure continued service for users. TechCrunch’s requests for comment were not returned at the time of the initial report, however.
Reddit users first noticed the app’s current outage, reporting over the weekend that the app would no longer load new podcasts or export the ones they had, making migration to another app challenging. Several expressed frustration with the lack of transparency from the app’s makers, noting they would have appreciated a prior notification about the app’s shutdown.
“Why all the silence and secrecy? It’s a huge slap in the face to people who have paid for and promoted the app for years,” wrote one Reddit user with the handle g-money-cheats.
Castro sold a majority stake to Dribble’s owner Tiny in 2018, but its creators at the time said they were still shareholders and would continue working on the app full-time. They cited business demands as the reason for the sale and stated that Tiny would provide them with more resources, contacts, and expertise.
Concerns about Castro’s future and the fate of the indie podcast app industry have grown in recent years as Spotify entered the market to compete with Apple Podcasts. This move led to the exit of other smaller podcast apps, including the sale of Pocket Casts to a collective of radio broadcasters, such as NPR and BBC Studios. The app was later acquired by WordPress.com owner Automattic in 2021. Satellite radio provider and Pandora owner SiriusXM also purchased the podcast app Stitcher for $325 million in 2020. This has left the market with fewer third-party apps outside of the tech giants, with Overcast, Podbean, and a few others remaining.
No response from Casto owner Tiny was received at the time of writing, but we will update if more information is provided.
