In today's news, Google Podcasts is shutting down. Google Podcasts users received an email today indicating that the listening app, which was just launched five years ago, will be shutting down in 2024. Google plans to migrate all of these users to YouTube Music.

This aligns with Google's recent push to integrate podcasts into the platform, which began supporting podcasts earlier this year. Many Android users were surprised by the announcement. Google Podcasts has been around since 2018 and was pre-installed on Android devices, but for some reason, it was inside Google's search app.

So despite Google Podcasts accumulating over 500 million downloads since its launch, it never captured a significant share of the podcast listening market. From Transistor's podcast hosting data, We can see that just over 2 percent of all downloads occurred on Google Podcasts, and data from Edison reveals that 23 percent of weekly podcast users in the US prefer YouTube as their go-to service compared to just 4 percent of Google Podcasts users.

Still, Google's podcast strategy feels all over the place. Back in May of 2020, Google announced that Google Podcasts would be replacing Google Play Music. Do you remember when you could listen to podcasts in Google Play Music? In the announcement, they said:

"With this transition, we encourage podcast listeners to transfer their subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts, our dedicated podcast player available for free on Android, iOS, and web."

Fast forward just three years, and Google is, once again, asking millions of its users to switch their podcasts from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music.

With the tech giant placing its podcast bets on YouTube Music, we'll see if this pans out better than their other podcast bets.

Here's a list of good alternatives to Google Podcasts.

YouTube Music will change as they add new features for podcasters.

At Podcast Movement, Steve McLendon said that YouTube Music will soon allow users to add RSS feeds, including private feeds.

Sources:

• PC Magazine
• The Verge
• TechCrunch
• YouTube Blog
• Cumulus Media

Transistor Podcast Hosting sponsored this episode. They're the best place to host multiple podcasts all in one place. Get 14 days free.