How YouTube Ate Podcasting

Summary

Summarized wtih ChatGPT

Podcasts have become extremely popular, with YouTube now the leading platform for listening, especially among younger audiences who prefer video content. This shift means podcasts are evolving from audio-only formats to video-centric experiences, influenced by the rise of platforms like TikTok. As podcasting becomes increasingly integrated with major platforms, creators must adapt to maintain their audiences and independence.

Key Takeaways:

1. Embrace video content to reach a wider audience.
2. Utilize social media for effective podcast promotion.
3. Stay aware of platform dependencies to retain creative control.

Highlights from Article

A lot has changed for podcasting in two decades, but one shift is both underrecognized and obvious: It’s not really an audio medium anymore. Edison Research, the gold standard of podcast analysts, laid it out last month: YouTube, typically known as the go-to platform for video content, has risen to the top as the most popular service used for podcast listening in the U.S. … 31% of weekly podcast listeners age 13 and up choose YouTube as the service they use most to listen to podcasts, surpassing Spotify (27%) and Apple Podcasts (15%).

• The most popular channel for podcasts is a video medium

Ben Cohen argues in The Wall Street Journal that for younger listeners, podcasts aren’t the new radio. They’re more akin to a new TV: For a decade, podcasts were something you listened to while you were doing something else: driving, working out, unloading the dishwasher. That was a passive experience. Now an entire generation has been conditioned to think of podcasts as something they can actively watch any time on any kind of screen — a phone, a computer, a TV.

• Podcasts are a more active experience than before.

Then, just as the 2010s podcasting bubble was about to peak, TikTok arrived. Here was a video-first platform that was basically only a recommendation engine, minus the pretense and/or burden of sociality — a machine for automating and allocating virality. Its rapid growth drove older, less vibrant social-media platforms wild with envy and/or panic. They all immediately copied it, refashioning themselves as algorithmic short-video apps almost overnight.

• Shortform clickbaity clips pushed podcasts back after the bubblepopped.

These clips were usually highlights, teases, punch lines, or moments of conflict that could briefly hold users’ attention. The dearth of social context on these new video platforms could work in podcasters’ favor: You encounter people in a studio, mid-conversation, laughing or scowling while they talk to each other about something.

Podcasting’s shift to video is interesting and broadly significant, but the most important change, as far as the industry is concerned, is probably the corresponding and slightly lagging shift to centrally controlled platforms like YouTube and Spotify.

• Podcasts are shifting from choose-your-own-platform to discovered-on-this-platform

But if the independent ecosystem starts to wither and platform growth becomes the only viable way to build and reach an audience, podcasters will become, in material terms, more like YouTubers, TikTokers, and other influencers. They’ll be working not just in a new medium, but at the mercy of the platforms.

• Platforms taking power from podcasts.

All material owns to the authors, of course. If I’m highlighting or writing notes on this, I mostly likely recommend reading the original article, of course.

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