Love him or hate him, Joe Rogan took the podcast as a format to the stratosphere. He showed that podcasts could make money with a dedicated niche audience.
And YouTube seems to agree.
So much so that YouTube’s parent company Google wants to lure podcasters with up to $300,000 to make video episodes of those shows, signaling it wants to compete with Apple and Spotify.
What This Means for Creators
It breaks down as follows: individual podcasters who add a video component to their shows can receive a grant of up to $50,000 to cover additional expenses. Podcast networks, which produce podcast programs can receive up to $300,000 to produce video versions.
In addition, YouTube is dropping the Canadian requirement that a YouTube Premium account must be subscribed to in order to include background audio in those video productions.
The move toward luring podcasters with cash grants comes in response to Amazon getting into the podcast business and Spotify continuing to sign high-profile podcasters like Joe Rogan.
Credit: Austin Distel
Here’s the Interesting Part
According to Bloomberg, the grants are non-exclusive, meaning that podcasters just need to add their shows to YouTube alongside their other podcast aggregator.
Clearly, Google is leveraging the streaming giant’s immense market share, trusting that in doing so, audiences will choose YouTube over others for video podcast content.
This makes sense when considering the number-two search engine behind Google is YouTube. YouTube’s domination over streaming video transcends any concern over the need for an exclusive deal since the audience tends to go to YouTube first anyway.
So while offering cash grants isn’t necessarily a bold move, it is a clever one, which will probably accomplish the same goal.
Thoughts? Leave them in the comments.
