Google Podcasts to be Discontinued, YouTube Music to Benefit

Google Podcasts will be discontinuing its services next year, as confirmed by an official statement from Google. YouTube Music will then become the new hub for podcasts, with additional updates and features for listeners. Find out more about this announcement.

YouTube Music is used instead of Google Podcasts

A YouTube Music blog post shared the news that Google Podcasts will be discontinued later in 2024. The post said, “We’re retiring Google Podcasts. As part of this process, we’re helping Google Podcasts users transition to YouTube Music podcasts.” They also mentioned that they are investing more in improving the podcast experience for YouTube Music users.

YouTube Music allows users to listen to podcasts in both audio and video formats. In addition, they can also listen to podcasts while offline, giving them flexibility in data usage. For now, podcasts are only available in the US, Canada, and Latin America. It has been reported that it will also be available to podcast listeners worldwide.

According to YouTube Music, about 23% of weekly podcast listeners in the US turn to YouTube most often, while only 4% prefer Google Podcasts. Google is also introducing a user-friendly migration tool to transfer existing subscriptions from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music. Users can embed podcasts via RSS feeds into YouTube Music, even if they are not currently available on the platform. Additionally, Google offers other podcast players an alternative export method via an “OPML file” of your subscriptions.

YouTube Music is also collecting feedback on the transition from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music so they don’t have any issues.

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