YouTube has long experimented with podcasting features on their streaming platform. Although users can stream a lot of podcast content through videos published by the platform's content creators, they don't have special categories.
Two months ago we reported that podcast content would be included in YouTube Music to compete with Spotify which has been offering this feature for years. Then a special podcast tab starts to appear on the channel page.
Recently, YouTube has officially launched podcasts on YouTube Music. Only for now it is limited to users in the United States only. According to YouTube, podcast content can be watched on the main application and continue to listen through YouTube Music.
According to YouTube the experience of listening to this podcast will differ between free and paid users. Free users may hear ads from YouTube while some features are exclusive to Premium users only. Premium users will also hear ads but limited to host sponsored ads only.
This podcast streaming experience is offered to Android, iOS and web users.