It is nothing that was not known. In fact, that YouTube Music would have a podcast and that the United States would be the first market in which this new function would be released, it was announced a few months ago, without many more details, it should be noted. For not knowing, you didn’t even know when it was going to happen… and it just did.
According to the specialized media in that part of the world, Podcasts have officially arrived on YouTube Music on all platforms where the Google service can be enjoyed, including mobile applications (Android, iOS) and the web application, only for the United States and not for all users, as the function will be gradually extended.
Otherwise, it is as expected: podcasts will have their own section within YouTube Music in the style of any other application of the stick, with recommended programs and episodes, subscriptions and related news, etc. YouTube Music is not going to reinvent anything in that sense, nor does it need to, by the way.
However, if there are two novelties that are worth highlighting regarding podcasts on YouTube Music, and that is that, honoring the type of platform it is, users will be able to enjoy their favorite programs in audio format, but also in video formatas long as the program is offered like this, as it happens more and more.
And, second and most important, all YouTube Music users, regardless of whether they are paid users or not, will be able to enjoy the listening to podcasts with the app in the background or with the screen offa behavior that only affects those who use YouTube Music from the mobile app, but that has given a lot of talk and not for the better.
As you already know if you use YouTube Music on your mobile, only Premium users can listen to music with the application in the background or with the screen off, which is very common when carrying out an activity for which you only need your ears and one of the most frustrating limitations of the Google service. A limitation that they said to eliminate a long time ago, without actually doing so.
However, with podcasts they will make an exception… forced by the circumstances, it could be argued, because unless they only target paid users, the opposite would be to sentence the potentially very propitious implementation of YouTube Music as a podcast platform, given the pull that YouTube already haswhere a majority of podcasters they crash their programs even when they are audio only.
An exception, yes. The other, in case you wonder, is with users who listen to their own music, that is, the one they have uploaded to their account taking advantage of the free space provided by the service. In this case, neither advertising nor other limitations of YouTube Music appear (you already know, if you didn’t know).
The big question, of course, is when will podcasts arrive on YouTube Music in the rest of the world, but for this there is no answer yet. Theirs would be that they do it throughout the year and that YouTube Music ends 2023 like this, meeting this milestone, but it is impossible to guarantee anything when Google has not even suggested an approximate period.
