Although there are already thousands of shows on its standard platform, YouTube Music is finally starting to host audio and video podcasts.
YouTube Music took a long time, but it’s finally getting into podcast territory. Although there are already thousands of programs with this format on the Google video platform, which already have thousands or millions of visits per episode, its audio streaming service still did not have these officially to date, despite to its popularity in other apps like Spotify and Apple Music . Fortunately, everything is about to change.
As Kai Chuk , YouTube ‘s head of podcasts , announced at the Hot Pod Summit on Thursday, February 23 , the service will finally embrace the format that continues to gain popularity around the world. “Soon we will start including audio and video podcasts on YouTube Music for US users, making podcasts more accessible and discoverable, with more regions to come ,” a company spokesperson said. to Engadget .
“This will help make the podcasts that users already love on YouTube available everywhere they want to listen ,” the representative added.
YouTube Music prepares to welcome podcasts
The aforementioned portal also highlights that podcast creation tools will arrive in YouTube Studio and content creators will be able to add audio podcasts to Google ‘s standard video platform through RSS feeds by the end of 2023. “Playlists Podcast owners will be able to take advantage of current and future YouTube features , such as listing on youtube.com/podcasts, podcast tagging, and listing in the YouTube Music app, ” the spokesperson noted.
The TechCrunch medium indicated that the YouTube Music mobile application will allow you to listen to podcasts in the background (minimizing the app or using others on the cell phone) but it will be necessary to have a paid subscription to the service to reduce the number of ads that will sound in the middle of the episodes.
Kai Chuk, Head of YouTube Podcasting, just announced that podcasts are coming to YouTube Music.
– audio first experience
– background listening
– library controls— Alban 🛫 NYC for Hot Pod Summit (@AlbanBrooke) February 23, 2023
Other details about podcasts on YouTube Music
In addition to everything mentioned above, it seems that YouTube Music users will be able to switch between the video and audio versions of podcast episodes that have been uploaded to the platform. This will be quite useful if the user decides they prefer to see the show’s participants or just listen to them by picking up the episode exactly where it left off in the other format and vice versa.
At the moment, it seems that YouTube is not looking to follow in the footsteps of its service’s competitors like Spotify and Amazon with exclusive and original podcasts. This could be momentous when determining whether YouTube Music can make a significant impact in the podcast market that Spotify and Apple have dominated for some time. However, the possibility of hosting the episodes in audio and video, as well as the enormous reach of the video platform, may be enough to face its adversaries.