It is nothing that is not known. The fact that YouTube Music will have a podcast and that the United States will be the first market to release this new feature was announced a few months ago, without many other details, is worth noting. Because you didn’t know, you didn’t even know when it was going to happen… and it just happened.

According to specialized media in this part of the world Podcasts have officially arrived on YouTube Music on all platforms where the Google service can be used, including mobile applications (Android, iOS) and the web application, only for the United States and not for all users, as the feature will be gradually expanded.

Otherwise, it’s as expected: podcasts will have their own section within YouTube Music in the style of any other stick applicationwith featured programs and episodes, subscriptions and related news, etc. YouTube Music won’t reinvent anything like that, and by the way, it doesn’t have to.

However, if there are two news worth highlighting when it comes to podcasts on YouTube Music, and that is that, given 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 this way, as is increasingly the case.

And secondly, and most importantly, all YouTube Music users, regardless of whether they are paid users or not, will be able to enjoy listen 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 it has caused 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 app in the background or with the screen off, which is very common when doing an activity that requires only your ears and one of the most frustrating limitations of Google. A restriction they said they should have removed a long time ago without actually doing so.

However, they will make an exception with podcasts… forced by circumstances, one could argue, because if they don’t just target paid users, the opposite would be dooming the potentially very favorable implementation of YouTube Music as a podcast platform, given the appeal YouTube already haswhere the majority is podcasters their programs crash even if they are audio only.

Exception yes. The second, in case you’re wondering, is with users who listen to their own music, that is, what they’ve uploaded to their account using the free space provided by the service. In this case, you won’t see ads or other YouTube Music restrictions (you already know, if you didn’t know).

The big question is of course when podcasts arrive on YouTube Music in the rest of the world, but there is no answer to that yet. Theirs would be that they do this for a whole year and that YouTube Music ends like this in 2023, reaching that milestone, but nothing can be guaranteed when Google hasn’t even suggested an approximate period.