Hello Everyone, 

As a content provider, I recently sent the following to the iTunes Store in a final ditch effort to resolve a problem I have encountered with regards to the distribution of one of my podcast shows. 

In short, I cannot recommend the iTunes Store as a reliable means of podcast content distribution. 

To Fellow iTunes Podcast Content Providers: beware!!!

Mark 

[BEGIN LETTER TO iTunes]
I am an iTunes content provider.

Please excuse the provocative tone of this message but for the past week, the iTunes store has all but ruined one of my shows by either losing the correct RSS feed to my show or by removing my show from the iTunes store, all together. 

The original problem arose when the Audio Boo server had a glitch.  Audio Boo immediately corrected the glitch but iTunes has not updated accordingly. 

Despite both mine and the Audio Boo developers repeated attempts to contact and explain the situation to your so-called iTunes team, the problem persists.

I am sure you have the means to read the history of this problem based on my iTunes account name so I will not go into detail in this communication.

As a result of reading your online instructions and engaging in a live online chat with one of your staff members, I have (1) changed both the Title and URL of the show’s RSS feed so as to successfully resubmit the podcast to iTunes and (2) successfully submitted the show under a slightly different Title and URL.

Now I continue to wait for approval of a show that has, in effect, already been approved before. 

The original name of the show and its corresponding URL was (Removed for BLOG Publication).

Again, iTunes royally screwed this up and no one, including those who man your chat system, has helped in resolving this problem in the least. 

The new Title and URL of the show is (Removed for BLOG Publication).

I successfully submitted the new information over 2 days ago but, as yet, I have not received an approval notice nor can the show be located in the iTunes Store. 

I would greatly appreciate it if you would approve the show, under its new Title and URL so that it can, once again, be located in the iTunes Store. 

Based on this experience, iTunes and its staff has greatly disappointed both me and those who subscribe to my show. 

Since no one at the iTunes Store appears to give a damn about helping me, I can no longer recommend that podcasters trust iTunes as a reliable means of distributing their content.  As a result, I will BLOG about this matter and the deplorable response I have received from iTunes. 

Please do not send me a form letter advising me to check my feed for iTunes compatibility as I and one of your staff members has done so.  The only problem seems to be that no one at Apple cares enough to flip a proverbial switch and fix this problem.

For the record, I can provide the entire chat log of the exchange between your staff member and me which took place yesterday.  

Even though I know Hell will freeze and thaw before anyone at your company would dare extend the courtesy of actually calling me on the telephone to assist, I will provide my contact telephone number which is as follows:  (Removed for BLOG Publication).

Again, all I ask is that you immediately approve my show under its new Title and URL.

Mark

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