Podcast hosting and sales company Acast has blocked YouTube’s access to its RSS feeds saying that the burgeoning podcast platform’s requirement that all submitted podcasts be free of ads clashes with its revenue model.
Acast holds exclusive monetization rights to its podcasts, and re-hosting on YouTube disrupts that structure. The company argues Dynamic Ad Insertion is a key income source for podcast creators and YouTube’s re-hosting of episodes negates the possibility of running DAI ads, impeding creators’ ability to monetize their content on YouTube.
The concern is that creators would not get paid for their content, but YouTube would from its own ads.
Recent research has revealed that YouTube is now the leading platform of choice for many podcast listeners, outperforming Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 70% of users rated the platform higher for enjoyability compared to Spotify’s 30%, 67% favored YouTube for its ease of use over Spotify’s 33%, and 62% preferred YouTube’s podcast recommendations against Spotify’s 38%. Those margins widened against Apple Podcasts.
Acast is actively seeking a resolution with YouTube to allow content passthrough in the future without re-hosting or ad interference.
