Science and Tech

The big surprise about podcasts is that people are listening to them. It’s just that he’s seeing them

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One imagines people listening to podcasts. But it turns out that podcasts are not just for listening. In fact, something else is done with them every time: people see them. And that is making the big winner in the segment not be Spotify or Apple. What’s up?

YouTube. Something surprising has happened with this format. A few years ago Google and YouTube seemed to have no answer to the rise of podcasts, but they didn’t need it because people changed the way they consumed them. It was no longer enough to just be able to listen to them: there was also interest in seeing them.


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Hello video podcast. The transition has been silent and gradual, but podcast creators gradually published them on YouTube, often with a simple premise: put a camera in front so that in addition to recording sound, there was also video recording. The result, a video podcast that has ended up taking off among users.

YouTube overtakes its rivals. The success of video podcasts has made YouTube the most popular podcast platform in the US. There its market share is 31%, while Spotify has a 29% share and Apple 15%.

Change of references. In 2020 the panorama was very different: Apple was the reference with 24% share (Spotify 20%, YouTube 18%), but little by little Apple’s platform has been losing ground while Spotify and especially YouTube have gained it .

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Electoral success. In The Wall Street Journal They highlight how the elections have further boosted the format. Donald Trump appeared in a dozen video podcasts during the campaign that racked up 100 million views on YouTube, demonstrating the popularity of this type of content.

Daniel Ek is clear. Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek knows a lot about this segment. Their platform has placed a lot of emphasis on podcasts, but until not long ago they focused on audio, without further ado. Now affirms conclusively that “everything is turning towards video” and in fact his company seeks to promote the publication of video podcasts.

Who would have imagined it?. Even Ek himself added what we probably all thought: “If you had asked me five years ago if people would want to see people sitting in front of a microphone, I would have said probably not.”

How YouTube reacted. During the pandemic, YouTube realized that podcasters had started recording their Zoom conversations and there was a lot of demand for that type of interaction where you could see the person you were listening to. After validating that video podcasts could indeed have a run, the company decided to dedicate numerous resources to this format. Spotify did the same thing years agobut the influence and popularity of YouTube are too great.

But the thing is that we consume more and more of everything on YouTube. The truth is that this winning quota is influenced by the fact that the platform has sneaked into the living room. People consume it as much as Netflix or other streaming platforms. In fact, sometimes more. This is what happens in the US, where it is the platform with the most viewers according to Nielsen. There, those responsible say, 150 million people watch YouTube on television every month.

Gen Z, hooked. And if there is a demographic sector that is especially enthusiastic about this content, it is Gen Z. A survey by the consulting firm Edison shows that 84% of young people between 13 and 24 years old consume video podcasts, and they feel closer to these content creators. because they can see them, not just hear them.

Image | Jonah De Oliveira

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