Focus is on YouTube’s podcast play despite creators’ doubts
Kai Chuk, YouTube’s head of podcasting, revealed more details about the video giant’s plans for audio creators — but questions still remain around monetization and usability.
Some people in the podcasting community have started to make light of the fact that, despite YouTube’s prominence in the creator economy, the platform has been slow to take off for podcasters.
Given the relative lack of resources, the company has appeared to pour into podcasting, especially in comparison to competitors like Spotify, which has spent more than $1 billion on the medium in recent years, or even towards YouTube’s other product offerings like Shorts, it may be more accurate to describe YouTube’s status as the most preferred or most used platform for podcast listeners, according to some surveys.
By elevating Kai Chuk, a seasoned YouTube executive who specialises in partnerships, to manage its podcasting initiatives in September 2021, YouTube appeared to be making progress. However, over the course of the following year, YouTube has been relatively quiet about its podcasting initiatives; in July 2022, the company quietly unveiled a podcast homepage with a few suggested videos and playlists. YouTube announced that marketers would be able to purchase 30-second audio ads and curate ad campaigns based on podcast categories in October of that same year.
The business provided a further update this week at The Verge’s Hot Pod Summit in Brooklyn. Podcasts will be added to the YouTube platform, Chuk and Steve McClendon, the leader of Google’s podcasting product, announced that podcasts will be added to the YouTube Music streaming service “in the near future.”
In other words, listeners will get to have a similar podcast listening experience on YouTube Music that they do on platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, where background listening, downloads and search and discovery tools are available for podcasts. “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 around video podcasting, Chuk appeared to pour cold water on the idea that YouTube would be the one to champion that medium forward. “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 said, adding that the platform is also experimenting with more podcast-specific features and insights in the creator studio.
However, less obvious features like RSS support to automatically update YouTube with new episodes haven’t been implemented yet. YouTube is a fascinating product, isn’t it? In anyone can typically upload anything to YouTube, it is open, but it also has elements of a walled garden, he said. “Support for RSS is definitely something we are considering. I’d say that, at least initially, we’ll use RSS to make it simpler for podcasters to upload their content to YouTube. We’re sort of debating what should be our objective in terms of future plans and such.
However, the executive was clear that YouTube is not interested in following Spotify in striking exclusive licencing agreements with prominent podcasters or commissioning original content. original shows. The platform remains the focus for the video giant, specifically in its ability to drive discoverability and help “creators find audience, however they find audience, whether you’re on the 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 remain 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 told THR. “The murmurs around the room were that [we’ve] heard this spiel before.”