PodcastOne
Replacing a legacy CMS and web app with a platform built for daily editorial pace - engineered for editors first and listeners second.
Client Challenge
PodcastOne runs one of the largest podcast networks in the industry - hundreds of shows, a constant flow of new episodes, and a public site and admin workflow that both need to keep up. Managing shows, episodes, hosts, and advertisers across a large network needed structure the legacy CMS wasn't built to provide, keeping hundreds of shows' episode catalogs current required reliable automation that didn't overwrite editorial decisions, and the public site needed to stay fast and SEO-friendly as the catalog kept growing - all while content and code needed a clean split so the CMS and site could be built, deployed, and scaled independently.
Objectives
- Model shows, episodes, hosts, and advertisers as first-class content types instead of bolted-on fields.
- Automate episode ingestion from RSS feeds without ever overwriting an editor's existing choices.
- Split the CMS and the public site into independent, headless deployments.
Solution Design
We rebuilt the CMS and the public-facing web app as a matched pair: headless WordPress on the content side, Next.js on the presentation side.
A custom plugin with dedicated post types and a Field API replaced a generic plugin-based approach, giving editors a purpose-fit admin experience. Automated WP-CLI ingestion pulls the last 365 days of episodes and sets latest/additional flags, but never overwrites the editorial choices staff have already made. The CMS and web app ship independently on their own Docker containers, so content and presentation scale on their own schedules.
Implementation Process
Phase 1: Content Modeling
Mapped editorial workflows and designed custom post types and a Field API in place of ACF.
Phase 2: Headless CMS & Ingestion
Built the WordPress plugin, WP-CLI RSS ingestion, and public REST endpoints.
Phase 3: Web App & Launch
Shipped the Next.js front end and launched both services independently via Docker and GitHub Actions.
Results & Business Outcomes
Editorial Tooling That Fits the Network
Shows, episodes, hosts, advertisers, and networks are modeled as first-class content types, not fields bolted onto a generic plugin.
Faster, Modern Discovery for Listeners
Featured and trending shows, category browsing, and inline audio are served from a CDN-backed image pipeline across Art19, Libsyn, and Omny.
Technology Stack
System Architecture Flow
Mapped editorial workflows across shows, episodes, hosts, and advertisers.
Custom post types and a Field API, no ACF.
Headless WordPress with WP-CLI ingestion and REST endpoints.
Next.js consuming the CMS API, styled with Tailwind.
Dockerized deploys for both CMS and web app.
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