Ear Worthy Announces Big Changes

 Well-known, possibly infamous, former GE CEO Jack Welch once said, "Change before you have to." And that's what we're doing at Ear Worthy. When you publish 290 podcast reviews/articles as we did in 2025, you receive a lot of feedback. Some positive, some negative, some constructive, and some like "I hate you and everything you stand for." Thanks, Mom!

By far, we received two primary threads in the feedback. First, your reviews are too long and need to be shorter and in a more appealing format. Second, don't publish one review a day, but publish several reviews once a week. The weekly article makes for easier sourcing, according to the feedback.

This is our new logo designed by one of our subscribers.

 Beginning on Tuesday, September 1st, Ear Worthy will publish its first weekly format. That weekly article will now contain multiple reviews and industry updates. We think you will enjoy the shorter reviews and accessible format. 

As always, Ear Worthy will be published on Medium.Com and Substack, with posts on social media.

We will also be publishing more Indie Podcaster Profiles because we believe that podcast consumers should know more about the vast reservoir of talent and passion contained in the indie podcaster community. 

As for the Ear Worthy awards, which we've managed the last two years, we are moving the award process to November for nominations and January for announcing the winners. The objective here is to align the awards with the calendar year. As before, only independent podcasts reviewed in Ear Worthy in 2026 will be considered. 

Finally, we want to thank Lashay Jones and James Driscoll for their years of support and guidance for Ear Worthy. They have found new opportunities, and they will be sorely missed. 

Our publication, Ear Worthy, has been around, in one name or another, since 2007. We feel it is a valuable resource to support independent podcasters. We will continue in this new format with that same mission. Furthermore, we still maintain the same two restrictions on content. We do not write about AI-narrated podcasts, and we only cover independent podcasts. If AI-narrated podcasts dominate the industry, then we will go "gentle into that good night!"

When we began in 2007, there were few, if any, publications reviewing podcasts. Today, they are everywhere, and, for us, we welcome that competition because it means that you, the podcast enthusiast, have more channels in which to discover new podcasts.

If you're reading this, thank you for being a loyal follower of Ear Worthy. If you are not reading this, then I ask: Why the hell not? Are you going to allow an AI chatbot to tell you what podcast to listen to or watch? 

Finally, in a shameless act of self-promotion (don't worry, I'm not going to sell you a Trump phone!), please check out my Forbes magazine articles on podcasting.