YouTube Adds New Podcasts Section

YouTube has added a new Podcasts “Explore” page that makes it easier to find podcasts. Although the addition was not formally announced, keen eyes noticed and called attention to the new dedicated podcasts section.

The new Explore page for podcasts may help bring more visibility to podcasts.

Explore Pages

Explore pages are top-level categories, like Music, Sports, and Comedy.

The menu navigation makes it easy for audiences to browse to the genre of content they are interested in, and once there, they can browse through the different selections.

The menus for accessing the Explore pages are at the top left of the page from the link labeled Explore and lower down along the left navigation in the Explore section.

Screenshot Of Links To YouTube Explore Pages

The new Podcasts Explore page is not accessible from the menu along the side.

The link to the Podcasts category page is only accessible through the main Explore category page.

One has to first click through to the main Explore page through the link accessible in the top left-hand corner.

Screenshot Of Link to YouTube Explore Page

The main Explore page has a text and icon menu that includes a link to the new Podcasts page, located in the lower right corner of the menu section.

Screenshot Of Explore Page Menu With Podcasts Link Highlighted

Clicking the icon takes a visitor to the new Podcasts page.

Screenshot Of New Podcasts Page

The new Explore page for Podcasts contains nine podcast categories to explore:

1. Popular episodes
2. Popular podcast playlists
3. Recommended
   Based on your Subscriptions and History
4. Popular podcast creators
5. Comedy
6. True Crime
7. Sports
8. Music
9. TV & Film

The only categories that have a dedicated page for exploring podcasts for the given topic are:

• Popular episodes
• Popular podcast playlists
• Popular podcast creators

Audiences can visit an entire page of podcasts in the Popular Episodes category:

Screenshot Of Popular Episodes Page

But they can’t do the same for the topics of Comedy, True Crime, Sports, Music, and TV & Film categories.

For those categories lacking a dedicated category page, the podcast audience has to use a sideways scroll to explore more podcasts within the topic.

Podcasts Are Popular on YouTube

According to a 2022 study by Edison Research, YouTube is the most popular platform for listening to podcasts, with Spotify a close second.

Notable about that statistic is that YouTube reached that level of popularity without a dedicated category for podcasts.

The new Podcasts Explore page isn’t highlighted on the YouTube home page, and there are no dedicated podcast categories for topics like Sports, Music, True Crime, or Comedy.

Because of the seemingly incomplete navigation, there’s a work-in-progress feel to it.

Screenshots by Author

Featured image by Shutterstock/Andrey Sayfutdinov