Google Podcasts is shutting down in 2024 with Google announcing it is shifting its focus and increasing its investment in having YouTube Music as a “centralized podcast destination”.
YouTube shares in a blog, “Looking forward to 2024, we’ll be increasing our investment in the podcast experience on YouTube Music — making it a better overall destination for fans and podcasters alike with YouTube-only capabilities across community, discovery and audio/visual switching.”
Google introduced podcasts on YouTube Music earlier this year and are currently available for users in the US, Canada and Latin America. The service lets users play podcasts in the background, download them for offline listening and also allows switching between audio and video versions of the podcasts. Google has announced a global rollout of the service before the end of 2023.
With the announcement of Podcasts on YouTube Music, it has come as no surprise that Google is killing off another popular service.
YouTube says that this move is in line with what podcast users are doing. The platform writes in a blog, “This matches what listeners and podcasters are already doing: according to Edison, about 23% of weekly podcast users in the US say YouTube is their most frequently used service, versus just 4% for Google Podcasts.”
As part of the transition process, YouTube will provide “a simple migration tool” and the ability for users to add podcast subscriptions to their YouTube Music library. In addition, the platform will also include an option for users to download an OPML file of their subscriptions which they can upload to other listening platforms.
The transition will be gradual and nothing changes for now, users will still have access to Google Podcasts and YouTube Music.
