2023 was a tumultuous year for Google that saw many apps and service shutdowns while the company focused on AI. The plug was pulled on Google Podcasts, nudging creators towards YouTube and YouTube Music instead. Thetransition will finish in April, but the process of uploading content still isn’t optimized for podcasts. Google seems eager to rectify this, and is finally making it easy for podcasters to upload older episodes to YouTube, especially if they rely on RSS feeds for distribution.
For any podcaster, reaching audiences is critical to making an impact, and uploading every episode to multiple platforms manually is far from ideal. Unfortunately, Google leaves creators no other option when getting their content published on YouTube and YouTube Music in the wake ofGoogle Podcasts’ shutdown. Moreover, podcasters were compelled to upload audio-only content as videos to satisfy YouTube’s requirements.
To make YouTube Music more podcaster-friendly, Google has been planning to add support for RSS feeds, because it would simplify the process of uploading content to the platform.RSS feed support for podcast subscriptionswas already tested with a handful of listeners late last year, but complete support would allow the podcasters to upload content to the platform using RSS feeds. It has been high on the company’s priorities ever since Google deprecated Podcasts. Updates to theYouTube Help documentationreveal RSS uploads are now supported inmany countrieswhere YouTube and YouTube Music are available (via9to5Google).
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Documentation explains that you need to complete the setup by entering an email-delivered code in your RSS settings. Thereafter, uploading to YouTube and YouTube Music would just require selecting the episode you want to publish, editing attributes such as the title, description, and visibility, reviewing it in Private mode, and then manually publishing it for your audience. To further assist audio-first podcasters, YouTube’s new tool automatically creates a video with a placeholder image created using standard podcast art.
The implementation allows bulk uploads as well, making it easy to sync older episodes if you’re new to the platform. For RSS publishing, you’re able to pick all the episodes until now, episodes created after a certain date, or only the ones you upload hereafter. Note that YouTube may take a few days to generate videos for bulk requests before you get to review them. YouTube also clarifies that it won’t manage your RSS feed for you, meaning episodes deleted from the channel will not be auto-deleted from the RSS and content uploaded to your RSS will not impact content on your YouTube channel — content updates and reuploads must be performed manually. You can always disconnect the RSS if you don’t want to use it.
As for listeners, it had been evident since March last year that Google Podcasts would be phased out whenpodcasts showed up in YouTube Music. However, nothing much is changing if you have been using YouTube Music since, besides a wider selection of episodes to choose from. If you haven’t made the switch already, Google Podcasts has a purpose-built export tool in the Settings page of the web UI, also accessible through theExport subscriptionsbanner users will see in Podcasts.
That said, support for RSS feeds for both creators and listeners will help YouTube stand a fighting chance against the likes of Spotify and otherfantastic podcast appswhich already have mature ecosystems fine-tuned for listeners.
