A Lot of People Apparently Watch Podcasts on YouTube Now ⇥ nymag.com
Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal:
Only four years ago, when it was less popular for podcasts than both Spotify and Apple, YouTube becoming a podcasting colossus sounded about as realistic as Martin Scorsese releasing his next movie on TikTok.
But this year, YouTube passed the competition and became the most popular service for podcasts in the U.S., with 31% of weekly podcast listeners saying it’s now the platform they use the most, according to Edison Research.
This is notable, but Cohen omits key context for why YouTube is suddenly a key podcast platform: Google Podcasts was shut down this year with users and podcasters alike instructed to move to YouTube. According to Buzzsprout’s 2023 analytics, Google Podcasts was used by only 2.5% of global listeners. YouTube is not listed in their report, perhaps because it exists in its own bubble instead of being part of the broader RSS-feed-reading podcast client ecosystem.
But where Google was previously bifurcating its market share, it aligned its users behind a single client. And, it would seem, that audience responded favourably.
John Herrman, New York magazine:
Then, just as the 2010s podcasting bubble was about to peak, TikTok arrived. Here was a video-first platform that was basically only a recommendation engine, minus the pretense and/or burden of sociality — a machine for automating and allocating virality. Its rapid growth drove older, less vibrant social-media platforms wild with envy and/or panic. They all immediately copied it, refashioning themselves as algorithmic short-video apps almost overnight. Suddenly, on every social-media platform — including YouTube, which plugged vertical video “Shorts” into its interface and rewarded creators who published them with followers, attention, and money — there was a major new opportunity for rapid, viral growth. TikTok’s success (and imitation by existing megaplatforms) triggered a formal explosion in video content as millions of users figured out what sorts of short videos worked in this new context: Vine-like comedy sketches; dances; product recommendations; rapid-fire confessionals. The list expanded quickly and widely, but one surprising category broke through: podcast clips.
Of the top twenty podcasts according to Edison Research, fifteen have what I would deem meaningful and regular video components. I excluded those with either a still piece of artwork or illustrated talking heads, and those which only occasionally have video.
[…] We’re losing the word “podcast” very quickly. It’s coming to mean video interviews on YouTube mostly. Our only hope is upgrading the open platform in a way that stimulates the imagination of creators, and there’s no time to waste. If you make a podcast client, it’s time to start collaborating with competitors and people who create RSS-based podcasts to take advantage of the open platforms, otherwise having a podcast will mean getting approved by Google, Apple, Spotify, Amazon etc. […]
I hope this is not the case. Luckily, YouTube seems to be an additional place for podcasters so far. I found every show in the top twenty available for download through Overcast in an audio-only format. Also, YouTube channels have RSS feeds, though that is not very useful in an audio-only client like Overcast. Also, Google’s commitment to RSS is about as good as the company’s commitment to anything.