YouTube’s Podcast Play Comes Into Focus Amid Skepticism – The Hollywood Reporter

It’s become somewhat of a running joke amongst some members of the podcasting community that YouTube, despite its strength as a major player in the creator economy, has been a slow burn — or even a disappointment — for podcasters.

YouTube’s status as the Most preferred Or Most commonly used platform for podcast listeners, according to some surveys, could be more described as a happy coincidence, given the relative lack of resources the company has appeared to pour into podcasting — especially in comparison to rivals like Spotify, which has spent more than $1 billion on the medium in recent years, or even toward YouTube’s other product offerings like Shorts.

In Sept. 2021 YouTube seems to be making some progress by promoting Kai ChukTo oversee the company’s podcasting efforts, he is a long-standing YouTube executive who is focused on partnerships. But YouTube has remained quiet about its podcasting efforts in the past year. YouTube quietly released a rather basic podcast in this time. podcast homepage In July 2022: A selection of playlists and videos recommended. In October YouTube stated that marketers could buy 30-second ads in the same year. audio ads You can create and curate ads based on podcast categories.

This The company provided one more update this week at The Verge’s Hot Pod Summit In Brooklyn. Appearing On stage Chuk And Steve McClendon, podcasting product manager at GoogleThe announcement was made podcasts YouTube will receive additional videos Music Streaming service “in the near future.”

In In other words, YouTube listeners will have the same podcast listening experience as they do on iTunes. Music They do so on platforms such as Spotify And Apple PodcastsYou can listen to background audio, downloads, and search and discover tools for podcasts at. “We’re really trying to give the user this kind of control and freedom of choice in terms of how they consume podcasts and bridging that gap between video and audio,” Chuk said.

For All the bullishness surrounding video podcasting Chuk YouTube seemed to be a cold-water skeptic of the notion that YouTube would be the medium to champion this medium. “The message that I would hope folks are taking away is YouTube, at large, independent of YouTube Music, is looking to better support podcasters and [recognizes] that podcasting is generally an audio-first medium,” He added that the platform was also trying out more podcast-specific features in the creator Studio.

But more obvious functionality, like supporting RSS feeds to automatically populate YouTube with newly uploaded shows, hasn’t come to fruition yet. “YouTube is an interesting product, right? It is open in the sense that anyone can generally post anything to YouTube, but it also is a little bit of this walled garden,” He stated. “Definitely support for RSS is something we are looking at. I would say, probably initially, we will leverage RSS to make it easier for podcasters to bring shows to YouTube. In terms of future plans, things like that, we’re sort of exploring what should our goal be.”

The executive did make it clear, however, that YouTube isn’t interested in following Spotify Exclusive licensing agreements with top podcasters, or commissioning original shows. The The video giant’s main focus remains on platform, particularly its ability to drive discovery and help. “creators find audience, however they find audience, whether you’re on platform or off platform,” Chuk said.

Specifics around how podcasters will be able to leverage YouTube’s strengths as a monetization platform for creators also remains unclear, though it seems like YouTube is avoiding a reinvent-the-wheel approach.

“At the end of the day, the monetization model is still based on our ability to sell ads, creators’ ability to monetize, whether it’s through AVOD, through ads or through other alternative monetization means, like memberships,” Chuk said. “We’ve created a video content business that generates billions of dollars and paid out $50 billion to creators and artists and partners over the past few years. How do we take that infrastructure and that capability and bring it [over to] audio, to podcasts?”

Until then, it’s still a wait-and-see situation for podcasters both in front of and behind the mic. “I don’t think that was the exciting announcement the room was waiting for,” One audience member spoke. THR. “The murmurs around the room were that [we’ve] heard this spiel before.”