After a six-year run, Google Podcasts will be shutting down next year. Instead, the internet company plans to double down on making YouTube Music the preferred destination for podcasters and listeners.
YouTube announced that in 2024, it will be “increasing our investment in the podcast experience on YouTube Music.” As part of that, later in the year, “we’ll be discontinuing Google Podcasts,” which was first launched in 2018, the company said in a blog post.
Google said that YouTube is already the more popular way to listen to podcasts: about 23% of weekly podcast users in the U.S. say YouTube is their most frequently used service, compared with 4% for Google Podcasts, according to Edison Research.
With the move to shut down Google Podcasts, the company said, it will help Google Podcasts users move over to podcasts in YouTube Music. For users, it plans to provide a “simple migration tool” and the ability to add podcast RSS feeds to their YouTube Music library, or the ability to transfer show subscriptions to a compatible podcast-listening app. For podcasters, YouTube Music plans to provide “robust creation and analytics tools” and RSS uploads, and it promises to expand the ability to listen to podcasts “everywhere YouTube Music listeners are already consuming their favorite content — in the background, in the car, offline and more.”
“In the coming weeks and months, we’ll gather feedback to make the migration process from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music as simple and easy as possible,” the company said. “once we feel the migration tools are ready, we’ll release them along with clear guidelines on how they work.”
Earlier this year, YouTube launched the ability to watch and listen to podcasts on YouTube Music in the U.S., without requiring a paid membership. Podcasts on YouTube Music include access to downloads, background play and on smart speakers as well as the ability to switch between audio and video podcasts. Google plans to make podcasts on YouTube Music globally available before the end of 2023.
New “YouTube-only” capabilities will be coming to podcasts on YouTube Music, “across community, discovery and audio/visual switching,” Google said.
“We know this transition will take time, but these efforts will allow us to build an amazing product and a single destination that rewards creators and artists and provides fans with the best podcasts experience,” the company said in the blog post. “For now, nothing is changing and fans will continue to have access to YouTube, YouTube Music and Google Podcasts. We’re committed to being transparent in communicating future changes with our users and podcasters and will have more to share about this process in the coming months.”
