YouTube is sending a message to the podcast industry: It is the biggest player in town.
The streaming video platform on Wednesday disclosed that it now has one billion monthly active users watching podcast content, an astonishing number that makes it the biggest podcast platform in the world.
That should not be totally surprising given YouTube’s status as the largest streaming video platform, but the new numbers underscore how the Google-owned company has maneuvered itself into becoming a podcast power player, with many hosts reworking their shows to be video-first.
Even other podcast companies are leveraging YouTube to grow their business, like SiriusXM, home to Call Her Daddy, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and SmartLess. The company is betting that by offering subscription podcast offering son other platforms (like YouTube) it can grow both its audience and its bottom line.
YouTube has also leveraged its recommendation algorithm to drive new listeners and subscribers, a key priority for podcasters looking to grow their business.
“Podcasts with video are more than just a trend, they meet audiences where they are: on YouTube,” the company wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “We’ve specifically developed our podcast product experience to make it easier for fans to find podcasts they love, discover new ones, and watch (or listen!) wherever they want. We’ve also added more and more podcasters into our revenue sharing program, the YouTube Partner Program.”
And the company says that users watched more than 400 million hours of podcast content on living room TV devices, suggesting that users are watching long-form podcasts in lieu of traditional TV news, talk show or interview programming.
And YouTube’s growth has not gone unnoticed. Spotify, which has made podcasts one of its key growth areas, is leaning into video-first content in part to embrace the shift by popular podcast creators, not to mention the more premium ad inventory that flows through video.
