The popular music service is officially adding Podcasts to YouTube music. Many users reported getting podcasts appearing on YouTube Music’s home screen and search panel.
The YouTube podcasting head “Kai Chuk” announced that Podcast would soon be added to YouTube Music. We will start introducing audio and video-first podcasts to YouTube music, especially for users in the United States. However, keep working on creating podcasts that are more explorer and accessible, with more areas to cover, told by a YouTube spokesperson. This addition will help create podcasts users like on YouTube, available everywhere they want to listen.
Interestingly, you’d be provided background listening for free. Such as, if you lock your while listening, your show will not be interrupted. But you can experience ads in the free service plan.
As per the recent reports from the event, YouTube’s target is not only signing exclusive deals with partners with podcasters, which has been the primary goal of Spotify. Youtube also looks forward to melding the experience of listening to podcasts on video and audio.
The interface is similar to regular music as it has a familiar toggle at the top that allows you to switch from the audio and video version of the content you’re interested in, along with the thumbnail or cover art dominating the center of the screen.
Unluckily, YouTube does not offer all Podcasts you could subscribe to via RSS. However, the creators will have access to podcast tools in the YouTube studio to convert the video into podcasts easily. Although, YouTube said that after a year, creators could upload the Podcast via RSS feeds directly to the platform. Hopefully, Google will initiate additional support for regular RSS-based podcasts because YouTube Music cannot accurately compete with Spotify in this genre.
Because of the data from November, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium have around 80 million subscribers with many customers on free trials. Meanwhile, the fastest emerging app Spotify still stands at the top by keeping a great market share in paid music streaming services, with over 205 million subscribers.
