YouTube Rapidly Expands into Podcasts

YouTube is rapidly gaining a foothold into the podcasting sector, with a new leaked proposal deck revealing further details about the platform's aspirations to integrate podcasts more directly into the YouTube experience.

YouTube is presently working on a new podcast discovery home in the app, as seen in this summary supplied by Pod News.

Podcasters will be able to submit their audio broadcasts through RSS, and YouTube would provide audio advertisements, analytics, and other tools to help them promote their content.

YouTube's entry into audio appears unusual, yet it somehow perfectly meshes with the company's overall mission of providing a wide-ranging home base for creators in hopes of helping them optimize their audience reach.

Many prominent YouTubers already have their own podcasts, which they present on the site through in-studio video footage, implying that YouTube already contains a significant amount of audio-focused material.

Simultaneously, YouTube has shifted its attention to music, with audio-only listening choices giving another way to enjoy YouTube content.

YouTube remarked in late 2020 that music streaming had achieved an all-time high, with YouTube Music currently boasting over 77 million paying subscribers.

Though visual aspects remain important to the platform's overall service, there is a demand for audio-only material, and YouTube implemented audio-only advertisements in 2020 as part of a larger drive to promote YouTube Music.

Such advertising would presumably apply to podcasts too, giving YouTube yet another avenue to help producers financially and expand the platform's capabilities in this area.

YouTube hasn't given any details about its podcast objectives, although it did appoint a podcast executive to manage its efforts last October, and it recently has been offering its prominent podcasters to tape episodes of their shows.

It's intriguing to observe how YouTube is moving its content investment away from original, studio-quality programs and toward smaller-scale creators in this regard.

YouTube introduced 'YouTube Red,' a significant move to compete with Netflix and commercial TV, in 2015, with a monthly subscription package that included a variety of professionally produced programs.

YouTube Red included the creation of shows such as 'Cobra Kai,' as well as programming collaborations with celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Hart, Demi Lovato, and Katy Perry.

As previously said, YouTube was seen as being in a good position to move into premium content and develop its stars into traditional TV and movie stars.

However, YouTube has discovered that it no longer needs to do so, with the most popular producers on the platform making more DIY, YouTube-style material, resulting in a change in user behavior that has rendered traditional TV and movie offers obsolete.

As a result, YouTube is now focusing on creator platforms, which allow users to develop their audiences in a variety of ways in order to optimize their profits potential on the platform.

And such a move is quite effective, plus podcasts could give additional aspects, offering producers more methods to maximize the value of their labor in one convenient location.