"New episodes" Playlist disappeared

[frabaert]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

OnePlus3

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

On my Spotify version (Germany) there was a change (Guess Layout change) of the "New episodes" playlist. In the library the playlist was highlighted and with each opening a popup appeared with information about the change. Since this annoyed me, I pressed a appeared "X" near the playlist in the library, in the belief to disable the info about the innovation.
Since then, however, the "New episodes" playlist has disappeared from my library and can no longer be found or reactivated.

How can I show the playlist again?

Thank you!

[frabaert]

Hey there,

Thanks for all the feedback!

The removal of the "New episodes" section is a test we're currently running. This is why some of you may see the section while others don't.

As a substitute to this feature, there is the option to find the new episodes of the podcasts you follow by selecting "What's new"  (the bell icon you see next to settings on mobile devices). Filtering by podcasts will yield similar results and you can filter by unplayed episodes as well. At the moment this is only available on the mobile phone app.

We'd also be glad to relay all feature feedback on this test to the respective team.

Hope this clears things a bit,

Cheers!

Screenshot for clarification:

[Alex]

Hi everyone,

We greatly appreciate your input and feedback about this test.

The Idea behind "What's new" is to have a section dedicated to new releases by followed music artists and podcasters. We understand that this might seem like an extra step when you want to access only new podcast episodes, since you need to hit the Podcasts & Shows filter button to get the selection.

We want to assure that we're closely monitoring this thread and are passing on your feedback to the teams working on this feature. It would be great if you can share what functionality would be most convenient for you. All user feedback will be taken into account when the test is concluded.

@Taylorzadai, currently there is way to save the filtering options by default (Podcasts & Shows > Unplayed). The filtering options will be reset when you close and re-open the app. You can open an idea on the relevant idea board about this. We always take new ideas and feedback into consideration to improve the app. Here you can read more on how ideas work.

Cheers!

[Amia262]

Hi Alex, my main issues with What's New are as follows:

1. Episodes do not play continuously. This is the biggest one. I don't want to have to add things to a queue - I just want my new shows to play back-to-back.
2. The option to mark episodes as played is in a menu, as opposed to being a button on the episode.
3. Marking episodes as played doesn't remove them from the list. Because of this the list gets cluttered fast. Editing to add: I see there is an option to filter to unplayed, but this is yet another tap to get to something that used to be easily accessible.

Removal of New Episodes is what caused me to cancel my premium subscription. I've tested out quite a few podcast apps since canceling, and honestly Spotify still has the best UI. If these issues were addressed I would consider purchasing premium again.

[188Jj]

Hi Alex,

the second tap isn’t the issue- the issue is the lack of parity in features. Now I can only go a week back in history vs before I can get the whole timeline. This means that I have to constantly keep up to date on a daily basis or I lose the notification. For a podcast power user this is detrimental. Also the design of the cell is really “fat”, if you follow a lot of podcasts or artists- it is a very long scroll and just not worth it- bring back the practical design of the old cell. 
it’s great that the team knows about this thread but it’s been over 2 weeks, don’t know why an user base this large takes this long to conduct an a/b 

[C_plus97]

This is one of the worst changes that you guys could have done, and whoever suggested it or came up with it is an absolute **bleep**. Why would you make it harder to find podcasts from the people we subscribe too, and why would you remove descriptions of the episodes in the new stupid little bell button. 

[Kelly41]

Hi Alex,

This change absolutely sucks.

Please change this back - making podcast listening less convenient is not the way forward. I will absolutely change podcast platform if this doesn’t changes thanks.

[Mileslauter]

I am not enjoying this change for the following reasons.

• Podcasts already have an exisiting area in the app hierachy, it creates unecessary confusion to have access to them elsewhere. It makes the app seem bloated and obtuse.
• I can only access the bell icon from the spotify home page so I have to back out of the main podcast page to access it. It feels badly thought through.
• I have no interest in accessing music through the 'What's New'  feature, none the less I have to navigate past this page to get to new podcasts.
• There was nothing wrong with the previous implementation of new podcasts.

Please change it back.

[JM415]

Hi there - US user here.  I've been dealing with this adjustment for a while now, and wanted to provide some feedback.  I would MUCH RATHER have the New Episodes playlist back.  I can only access the What's New bell from "Home" and I preferred having the pinned playlist in "Your Library" as it's where I navigate naturally to pick between my listening choices.  Also, the What's New List does not allow me to get rid of played episodes and remove it from the listing ("mark as played" in the previous playlist ux), and the green Played checkmark is so small, it can be hard to figure out what I actually have in my queue.

[Aruffin07]

Spotify - please bring back the new episodes list under my library -> podcasts. The list view here was much better than the current list under “what’s new.” It is also very helpful to have the checkbox for “mark as played” on the main screen instead of having to select the 3 dots to access mark as played. 

with the new interface change, my podcasts now repeat when they are finished instead of stopping playing or moving to the next podcast in the list. Can you change the play feature so that when a podcast is complete the next podcast in your subscribed podcasts is played?

[KH3737]

I cannot overstate how frustrating this update is for people like myself who follow dozens of podcasts and used to use the library feature to quickly sort episodes I wanted to play. My issues are

• There's an extra click to get to my podcast episodes. I used to visit "your library" - I now have to go to "what's new", then "podcasts and shows"
• I used to be able to quickly mark episodes as played (via a tick visible next to the episode description) and it'd instantly remove it from my list. Very handy when I have 10+ new episodes a day but not wanting to listen to them all. I now have to click the hamburger link (three dots) and then "mark as played"
• Even when I mark as played, the episode does not get removed from my list. This includes when I apply the "unplayed" filter.

I have uninstalled twice. It's not a technical issue - it's your team creating change when it's not needed. I now have a list of 200+ episodes I have to scroll through each day to find content I want to listen to. Please, please revert these changes. I know you're trying to get people to discover new content but this shouldn't come at the expense of allowing people to do the very thing they're paying you for. 

[KH3737]

Two more thoughts from my prior comment:

• Why did you remove episode descriptions? I follow lots of podcasts from the same genre (politics, as an example). The title alone doesn't help me to decide if it's worth listening to.
• I have to go back to the home page to access podcasts (if I'm browsing music). This doesn't feel intuitive - I should be able to quickly toggle between formats (music, podcasts) via navigation visible on every part of the app. 
• This suggestion is a nice to have (not essential) - I follow some podcasts which have subscriber content (that I don't pay for). I can't remove them from my list of episodes. That wasn't an issue with the previous feature but now I can't remove played episodes, having paid episodes in my list of 200+ episodes I need to scroll through just clogs up the feed even more. 

Can you provide timing for when a decision will be made on whether to proceed? I'll happily pay for another month if there's the chance you're genuinely taking this feedback on board. But if this is permanent, then I'm outta here. There's zero point in me paying you when the features I used to use and recommend to others are no longer available. Surely tests only take a few weeks? 

Thanks

[YOU_ARE_IDIOTS]

This is an incredibly dumb "update". 

[dc34]

I've only seen fixes proposed for mobile - which works fine for me anyway. What about the desktop app? I can sort my podcasts by date added or alphabetically, nothing else. I don't have the new episode playlist or any way of looking for new episodes outside of manually going through the podcast pages. This is incredibly frustrating and makes the desktop app basically unusable for podcasts.

I've resorted to using my phone to find new podcast episodes and then opening the episode on the desktop app. This is a stupid workaround that shouldn't be required.

[UserWXYZ]

This actually is not a solution.  I've discovered that many of my new, unheard podcast episodes do NOT show up when I filter as shown above.  How about actually supporting your customers by reinstating this popular feature that doesn't cost you a dime?

[UserWXYZ]

So what about the unplayed podcasts that I subscribe to that do NOT show up when I go to "What's New" and filter to "podcasts" and "unplayed"?  It's incredibly frustrating that even this "solution" doesn't work, and I have to manually search each podcast to find out what I'm missing.  Why does Spotify refuse to reinstate the working "New Episodes" collection, when none of your other solutions work, and it would take zero time or effort for you to turn it back on?

[Andreuha]

I am unable to find the "what's new" view on Desktop, phone, or web player. My Spotify Car thing was not able to affect anything in this view at all for a very long time now. The wrapper no longer works on the web player either.

This view was so incredibly useful it's crazy you got rid of it without creating a REAL replacement first.

I'm so sick and tired of being experimented upon by Spotify, in ways which disrupt me and hurt my experience. Why am I paying money to be a guinea pig for people who are seemingly making changes for the sake of ensuring there are always changes being made?

[alehel88]

I don't have a bell on the desktop app, the website or on android auto. The only place I have the bell is in the app on my phone (which coincidentally still has the New episodes playlist). So the only place I can easily find new podcasts is on the app. I therefore listen to far less podcasts now as it is just to much of a hassle to find episodes.

[Byzz4]

The removal of the ‘your latest episodes’ feature on the desktop app is quite possibly the most annoying change that your team could’ve made to the Spotify platform. This feature was the handiest most beneficial point of access to my podcasts as it ordered my news and other podcasts in dated descending order, which was the single reason I’ve kept using Spotify. There seems no good reason to remove this. And I’ll be cancelling my subscription and swapping to Apple podcasts because of it. 🙃

[Andreuha]

So... I basically switched to Google Podcasts, who let me see the releases of podcasts I'm subscribed to... This brilliant decision forced me to start using other platforms, and discovering that things I'm already paying for like Prime Music aren't that bad. Will probably be cancelling my family subscription in the future.

[benschmidt]

this does not work. The played episodes still show. Very frustrating

[einarq]

Please bring back the "New episodes" feature on the desktop app, its very useful.