Google has announced that in 2024 the Google Podcast app will cease to exist. It is not that it is going to leave its users without the possibility of listening to podcasts, what is happening is that Google will begin a transition process towards YouTube Music.
YouTube Musics began allowing the use and listening of podcasts earlier this year in the United States, and plans to expand the service to the rest of the countries before the end of 2023. The company has also indicated that it will allow podcast creators to upload their feeds RSS to YouTube before the end of the year.
In this context, It makes no sense for Google to have two tools that allow you to do practically the same thing. For this reason, the company has decided to close Google Podcasts (despite the fact that the name was much more intuitive and corporate) and cause users to migrate to YouTube Music. This is also a way to enhance this service.
Despite the change, Google continues to consider podcasts as a fundamental piece in its content strategy. The company says it will increase its investment over the next year to make YouTube Music an ideal place to listen to and discover new podcasts.
In this sense, it will follow a strategy similar to that of Spotify, for which podcasts are also crucial, betting on options to find new content and create a community within the platform, which will combine both audio and video podcasts.
How the transition from Google Podcast to YouTube Music will occur
To help users migrate to YouTube Music, Google will make a step-by-step migration tool available. It will also give them the ability to migrate their podcasts’ RSS feed to the YouTube Music library, even if they were not uploading their shows to YouTube until now.
At the moment migration tool is not available, but it is expected to be ready before the end of the year. In any case, Google will not close Google Podcasts until it is available. In fact, it will give users a few months to make the transition before the tool is permanently closed.
Google has also indicated that it will allow you to obtain an OPML file with all Google Podcast podcast subscriptions. This will be useful for those who do not want to automatically migrate to YouTube Music using the tool and want to upload all their content to another podcast platform, such as Apple Music or Amazon Music.
