RIP, Google Podcasts.
Starting in 2024, Google is making YouTube Music its one and only stop for podcasts–so it’s shuttering Google Podcasts, the free-to-listen service it launched in 2018.
The decision “matches what listeners and podcasters are already doing,” YouTube said in a company blog post. It cites Edison stats: 23% of weekly listeners in the U.S. say YouTube is where they’re listening to podcasts most often, compared to just 4% who said their top service is Google Podcasts.
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This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone in the YouTube ecosphere. The platform has been pushing podcasts (especially podcasts with video components) hard over the past couple of years, but it’s still struggling to generate significant traffic.
“We’re living in the golden age of podcasts,” YouTube said. “We’ve seen creators and artists really embrace Podcasts on YouTube, and its incredible potential to boost audience growth across audio and video formats.”
As part of the whole consolidation, YouTube plans to increase its investment in podcasts over the next year, “making it a better overall destination for fans and podcasters alike with YouTube-only capabilities across community, discovery and audio/visual switching,” it said.
As for folks who use Google Podcasts, YouTube’s apparently going to put some work into a migration process that’ll let listeners bring their podcast libraries from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music. Podcasters will see their shows automatically imported to YouTube Music, and will get access to YouTube’s creation and analytics tools to manage their content.
“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,” YouTube said. “Once we feel the migration tools are ready, we’ll release them along with clear guidelines on how they work.”
