YouTube Music podcasts support starts rolling out internationally

Abner Li | Jul 13 2023 - 11:30 pm PT

After launching in late April for US users, YouTube Music is starting to roll out international support for podcasts.

In the Home tab, you’ll see “Podcasts” join the other five mood filters. This loads a dedicated feed with carousels like Keep listening, Recommend episodes, and Your shows, as well as various categories: Gaming, True Crime, Political Commentary etc. You’ll get similar suggestions in Explore.

Podcasts joins the high-level filter for Playlists, Songs, Albums, and Artists in the Library tab. There’s an Auto playlist for “New Episodes” from your shows and previously saved “Episodes for Later.” Subscribed podcasts will appear in your Library like other songs, albums, playlists, and artists.

The Now Playing screen offers 10-second rewind and 30-second forward along with playback speed and sleep timer. Show “Details” replace Lyrics at the bottom.

Show pages are similar to albums and playlists with artwork and a list of episodes, as well as publish date and playback status. Tap to see the full description with the ability to “Save episode for later” using the bookmark button and download.

Offline playback and background play is available without a YouTube Premium subscription. All users will “experience host-read endorsements or sponsorship messages when listening to podcasts.”

Only podcasts/channels that have uploaded video versions of episodes are available in YouTube Music. As such, the selection might be limited with RSS feeds not currently supported.

As of Thursday, we’re seeing podcast reports from YouTube Music users Brazil and Canada with local language support.