Google Podcasts Will Shut Down in All Regions on June 23
- Laurent Giret
- Apr 25, 2024
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After Google Podcasts shut down earlier this month in the US, Google announced yesterday that the app will stop working in the rest of the world starting on June 23. The company is also inviting all Google Podcasts users to migrate their podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music, which is Google’s new home for podcasts.
As an alternative, the migration tool in Google Podcasts lets users export all their podcast show subscriptions as an OPML file that can be imported into another podcast app. This migration tool will only be available until July 29, however.
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On the official YouTube blog, the YouTube team also put the spotlight on new podcast features recently added to YouTube Music, such as support for third-party RSS podcasts, enhanced download options, and customizable playlist sorting. For Android users, the in-car listening experience with Android Auto has also been improved.
To be frank, YouTube Music is still missing some important features for podcast listeners, such as the ability to mark an episode as played. The app also doesn’t offer automated transcripts, something that’s now available for some shows on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Another problem with YouTube Music is that podcasts are still hard to find in the app. While there’s a “Podcasts” filter at the top of YouTube Music, the standalone Google Podcasts app didn’t mix podcasts with YouTube videos. Subscribing to a podcast on YouTube Music also creates a playlist that gets mixed with the rest of your YouTube playlists, which means that your YouTube library can get messy pretty fast.
Citing a recent Cumulus Report showing that 84% of surveyed Gen Z monthly podcast listeners in the US have discovered a podcast on YouTube, the YouTube team believes that unifying the podcasting audiences across YouTube and YouTube Music will ultimately benefit content creators and their fans. “YouTube’s secret sauce is our recommendations,” the YouTube team explained yesterday. “They help people discover something new or go deeper on what they love, while helping podcasters reach new audiences only found on YouTube.”