Is Everything Becoming a Podcast?

I was listening to/watching Scott Galloway talk about how “podcasts are the new TV” in his latest…ahem, podcast today. His point is that the line is blurring between the idea of podcasts, videos, and TV to such an extent that they’ll eventually just coalesce into the same thing. He goes in depth on the economics, and I won’t try to summarize his points, but I’ve thought a lot about this concept in the past.

At one point, podcasts were mostly audio (y’know, ’cause iPod), but at some point, the term became generically applied to any semi-regularly published video series. It actually makes a lot of sense that YouTube has integrated both audio and video podcasts into YouTube Music. After all, the concept of channels, subscribers, and notifications plays right into that platform’s wheelhouse. You can start by listening to a podcast and seamlessly switch between the audio and video version. Some of my favorite programs that I watch daily or weekly on my phone, PC, or TV are really just podcasts delivered via YouTube. Many of these, like the Prof G Pod, the NYT Headlines, or The Daily, like are just audio with a static image. Others, like Colbert, TDS, MKBHD, Answers with Joe…even First Ring Daily or Hands On Windows are more produced with video.

Here’s my point…do we reach a point where everything is just a podcast? Like, could every article on a site like Thurrott just be delivered as a podcast? Could you imagine AI taking just about any morsel of content and repackaging it multiple different ways depending on who’s consuming it and how? If I want to read it as an article, then I can do that, but also if I want to watch it as a narrated presentation or a discussion between two hosts, then that’s also available. Especially if creators didn’t need to spend a lot of time building multiple different versions.

Discuss…and feel free to share some of your favorite podcasts.