It’s no secret that Google has been strategizing for quite some time now around how it can kill off Google Podcasts and transition creators over to YouTube for listening experiences. In fact, the company hired Kai Chuk last year to “clean up” the listening experience on the video platform.
Since then, we’ve seen plenty of evidence for the coming merger of the two services. Well, it’s more like an assimilation of Podcasts into YouTube, but you get the point. A new Podcasts homepage has appeared on the Discover tab on YouTube, background listening in YouTube Music is becoming free instead of hiding behind the Premium paywall, and more.
Now, it seems YouTube Studio is presenting creators with an experimental option for uploading podcasts directly to the site according to a new report from Podnews. Those selected to participate in the experiment will see a “New podcast” button after clicking “Create” – the spot they normally upload MP4 videos. Additionally, a new “Podcasts tab” is appearing for some.
Most importantly, Google is giving existing YouTubers (who have access to these new tools) the capability to mark existing video playlists as podcasts by selecting the three-dot menu and choosing “Set as podcast”. Instead of having to convert everything manually, this gives creators the power to automagically set their content to appear under the podcasts portion of YouTube when it goes fully live.
My guess is that the goal is really to drive podcasts into YouTube Music and to have them available on YouTube as a positive consequence of the two services being tied so closely together. If so, this means that podcasts will have gone full circle and landed right back where they started. For those unaware, Podcasts used to be a part of Google Play Music before it was split off into its own service and Play Music became YouTube Music. Oh well, I guess.
Lastly, podcast creators will have a full suite of analytics in YouTube Studio showing them their performance, audience, and revenue insights for each show. At this time, the experiment only impacts a small number of creators globally who are using YouTube Studio on desktop, and we’ll let you know when and if this expands in the future.
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