When Google rolled out podcasts on the YouTube Music app in 2023, the writing was on the wall for Google Podcasts. It didn’t take a massive leap in logic to guess that Google Podcasts was going the route of Google Play Music and being integrated directly into YouTube. The switch is happening on April 2, and after that, Google Podcasts will cease to function in the US.
Fortunately, you’ll have additional time to migrate to another service. You will be able to migrate their subscriptions through July and will be reminded to do so whenever they attempt to open the Google Podcasts app. The migration process first rolled out to the US back in December but has since hit most of the world where Google Podcasts are available.
Folks outside of the US will still have access to Google Podcasts for a little while longer. Google told TechCrunch that it’s aiming for an April 2 shutdown in the US. The company didn’t share when the rest of the world would lose access, but it’ll still be sometime in 2024.
Google Podcasts first launched in 2018. Before its launch, podcasts were tied with Google Play Music. When it came out, it focused primarily on Google Assistant integration and using information gathered from your listening habits to offer more personalized recommendations. The service improved over time and became one of the most popular podcast apps, boasting over 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone.
Google revealed the reasoning for integrating Google Podcasts with YouTube Music in its announcement last year.
“Later in 2024, as part of this process, we’ll be discontinuing Google Podcasts. As part of this process, we’ll be helping Google Podcasts users move over to Podcasts in YouTube Music,” Google said in September in a blog post. “This matches what listeners and podcasters are already doing: according to Edison, about 23% of weekly podcast users in the US say YouTube is their most frequently used service, versus just 4% for Google Podcasts.”
Initially, the move to separate Google Podcasts from Google Play Music emulated Apple’s approach of having a separate podcast app and music streaming app. At the time, Apple Podcasts was the most popular podcast app in the US with 34% of US podcast listeners using it. However, Spotify has since taken the throne as the top podcast app in the US, with Amazon doubling its podcast listener numbers since 2021 with the same all-in-one strategy.
So while this seems like another classic case of Google doubling back, as it did with Inbox by Gmail, Google integrating podcasts with YouTube Music more closely emulates the methods that are driving success for other companies in 2024. In addition to audio podcasts, YouTube Music will boast video podcasts along with access to YouTube, one of the Internet’s largest sources of both music and podcast content.
Google Podcasts will officially enter the Google graveyard at the tender age of six years.
