YouTube Music officially launched support for audio and video podcasts earlier this year, slowly signaling the eventual death of Google’s native Podcasts app as it was poised to become its replacement. Today, Google confirmed this, announcing that Google Podcasts will be discontinued in 2024.
In a blog post, the YouTube team announced today that it will be increasing its investment in podcasts, making it a better destination for fans and podcasters. As part of this process, YouTube will discontinue Google Podcasts. This migration is scheduled to take place later in 2024 with no specific date given.
YouTube will also provide robust creation and analytics tools for podcasters. While this transition will take time, YouTube states that it will remain committed to building an amazing product and a single destination for podcasts.
YouTube Music Podcasts in Home and Library
This move will position YouTube Music closer as a competitor to other music streaming platforms – such as Spotify, which has Podcasts tightly integrated into their apps. This will recreate that experience instead of having users hop between apps to access their daily audio and visual content.
Additionally, YouTube Music’s integration of podcasts with its music library is another unique feature. This will make it easy for users to switch between listening to music and listening to podcasts, as well as switching between the audio and video formats of said media.
YouTube Music’s expansion into the podcasts space is a significant development for the podcast industry. YouTube Music definitely has the potential to reach a large audience of potential podcast listeners and the resources necessary to invest in helping podcasters grow their audiences. Let’s hope this move works out and results in a richer and more successful experience for YouTube’s Music app.
