YouTube is – reportedly – trying to convince podcasters to record videos of their conversations in a predictable way. Those videos can then be viewed by users on the company’s video platform. That’s how the streaming service gets unique content, which means you can’t just watch it elsewhere.
Bloomberg writes that YouTube is offering various podcast creators monetary payments to record their conversations with others with images. Independent shows can sometimes count on fifty thousand dollars. Networks, in turn, can count on a fee of over three hundred thousand dollars.
YouTube wants image with podcasts
That money can be used to record podcasts, but also to produce other video content. Despite being a video platform, YouTube was for a time a major player in the podcast market. And that’s notable because podcasts are basically pre-recorded radio conversations.
Listening, but!
However, YouTube itself – as it seems right now – is doing pretty little with its offerings and for listeners. Do you ever listen to a podcast within the company’s app? Then you know that you should always have your smartphone screen on. Unless, of course, you take out a Premium subscription, which eliminates that.
Investing in the platform
But when listeners just want to listen to the conversations, it doesn’t make sense to leave your smartphone screen on. Then you’d be better off listening elsewhere, like a place you already pay monthly for. Like Spotify, which also keeps investing in its platform for podcasts.
If interesting images are available with podcasts, that might encourage listeners to watch. And YouTube in turn earns from that, because ads can be shown. However, the platform does not want to respond to these new rumors, so for now we do not know for sure if parent company Google will open its wallet for this.
