Podcasts Are Taking Over YouTube. But Not For Long.
发布时间 2023-05-10 19:00:30 来源
Podcasts are taking over YouTube. Everyone from financial influencers and gamers to fitness models and the vloggers all suddenly have a podcast. This is in stark contrast to everything the media has been telling us. Our attention span is shrinking. TikTok is beating YouTube. Long-form content is dying. YouTube shorts are taking over and on and on and on.
Podcasts正在取代YouTube。从金融影响者、游戏玩家、健身模特到日志作者，所有人都突然有了自己的播客。这与媒体一直告诉我们的一切形成了鲜明的对比。我们的注意力越来越短。TikTok正在打败YouTube。长篇内容正在消亡。YouTube shorts正在取代长视频等等。
The reality is that this is completely false. In fact, companies are actually backing away from short-form content. Meta has eliminated their reals creator fund and TikTok is becoming more and more like YouTube. Conversely, what seems to be doing really well is actually podcasts, despite them breaking basically every creator role you can think of.
事实是这完全不属实。实际上，公司们正在逐渐放弃短视频内容。Meta已经取消了他们的真实创作者基金，而TikTok也越来越像YouTube。相反，事实上很受欢迎的是播客，尽管它们打破了几乎所有你能想到的创作者规则。
For starters, they're one to two hours long, if not longer, so thereby no means catering to our short attention spans. Also, there's no fancy editing, sound effects, music, graphics, coherent storytelling or any of that. More times than not, podcasts are just conversations that naturally jump from one topic to another. Not to mention, there's only one episode per week or maybe only one episode per month. Yet, despite all these quote-unquote shortfalls, podcasts are performing better than ever.
首先，这些播客通常有一到两个小时长，甚至更长，因此并不适合我们短暂的注意力。此外，它们没有华丽的编辑、音效、音乐、图形、连贯的故事情节等等。往往，播客只是一些主题之间自然跳跃的对话。更不用说，每周只有一集，甚至可能每个月只有一集。然而，尽管有这些所谓的缺点，播客的表现比以往任何时候都要好。
The iced coffee hour has nearly half a million subs. The PBD podcast has 700,000 subs. Lex Friedman has nearly 3 million subs and heck, even Logan Paul's podcast has 4.5 million subs. It seems like podcasts are the new vlogging, where every YouTuber has a podcast channel and they all rack in millions of views.
冰咖啡时段的订阅量接近50万。PBD播客有70万订阅。Lex Friedman拥有近300万订阅，甚至连Logan Paul的播客也有450万订阅。看起来播客是新的视频日志，每个YouTuber都有一个播客频道，他们都获得了数百万的观众。
YouTube is of course trying to capitalize on this trend by pushing podcasts as much as possible. Just yesterday, YouTube rolled out podcast functionality on the music app. You no longer have to be a premium member to listen to podcasts in the background.
YouTube自然会尽可能利用这一趋势，着手推广播客。昨天，YouTube在音乐应用中推出了播客功能。不再需要成为高级会员即可在后台收听播客。
But speaking of vlogging, that trend didn't last for too long. Eventually, most bloggers quit, and there was only a select few channels like Casey Neistat, who have been able to survive in the genre over the long term, and even he took a massive break. So, why are podcasts taking over the platform, and is this just a short term fad, or the future of YouTube?
说到视频博客，这个趋势并没有持续太长时间。大部分博主最终放弃了，只有极少数像Casey Neistat这样的频道能够在这一流派中长期生存下来，甚至他也有长时间的休息。那么，为什么播客正在接管这个平台，这只是短期的风潮，还是YouTube的未来？
Taking a look back, the explosion of podcasts on YouTube can be traced back to one man. Joe Rogan. Rogan basically invented the podcast niche here on YouTube, having started his podcast, the Joe Rogan experience, way back in 2009. Given his background as a comedian and a show host on mainstream media, he was naturally pretty good at having engaging and enticing conversations.
回首往昔，可以追溯到一个人，他开创了YouTube上播客的热潮，那就是乔·罗根。罗根基本上是在2009年开创了他的播客节目《乔·罗根经验》，在YouTube上开创了播客细分领域。鉴于他作为一个喜剧演员和一位主流传媒节目主持人的背景，他自然而然很擅长进行有趣引人的对话。
His show was almost like a good mythical morning, which was also blowing up at the time. But instead of focusing on production and entertainment value, Rogan would focus on educational and intellectual value. This isn't to say that he instilling blue up, but it gave him a differentiating factor which he leaned into over the years.
他的节目几乎像是《好奇神话早安》一样，当时也非常热门。但是，罗根不像其他节目一样注重制作和娱乐价值，而是注重教育和智力价值。这并不是说他没有注重娱乐性，但这使他在多年来有了不同的区别性优势。
He would interview everyone from Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson to David Blaine and Bernie Sanders. Over time, this gave him access to an extremely large audience. In fact, by the end of 2020, he had 10 million subscribers and nearly 3 billion views.
他会采访从伊隆·马斯克和尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森到大卫·布莱恩和伯尼·桑德斯的所有人。随着时间的推移，这让他获得了极其庞大的听众。事实上，到2020年底，他已经拥有1000万订阅者和近30亿次观看。
But all of this would have changed in 2021. You see, Spotify offered Rogan an exclusivity deal that was worth as much as $200 million. Rogan would of course take the deal and he would move his podcasting over to Spotify starting at the end of 2020.
但所有这些将在2021年发生变化。您知道，Spotify向Rogan提供了一份独家交易，价值高达2亿美元。Rogan当然会接受这个交易，并将他的播客内容转移到Spotify，从2020年底开始转移。
Conventional wisdom would tell you that this is terrible news for YouTube. Spotify had effectively poached the most popular podcaster in the world. And with that, who knows how many loyal listeners they had converted to Spotify. But this is where things get dicey.
传统智慧会告诉你，这对YouTube来说是可怕的新闻。Spotify实际上已经挖走了世界上最流行的播客主持人。而随之而来，谁知道他们转移到Spotify的多少忠实听众。但这是事情变得棘手的地方。
Rogan is obviously still extraordinarily popular pulling in an average of 11 million listeners' episode. For perspective, even the most popular mainstream media show will only pose in 3.24 million viewers' episode. So, Rogan is obviously crushing it. But that doesn't mean that YouTube is performing poorly without him.
罗根显然仍然非常受欢迎，平均每集吸引了1100万听众。为了对比，即使最受欢迎的主流媒体节目每集仅有324万观众。因此，罗根显然很出色。但这并不意味着没有他，YouTube表现不佳。
In fact, Twitch has found that large craters leaving the platform is surprisingly beneficial for them. Here's the thing, when there's a super large crater in a given niche, they basically soak up all the attention. This makes it extremely difficult for smaller craters to gain traction, as viewers are simply satisfied with the larger crater.
事实上，Twitch 发现大主播离开平台对他们来说惊人地有益。原因在于，当一个给定领域有一个超级大主播时，他们基本上会占据所有的关注。这使得小主播极难获得关注，因为观众往往满足于大主播。
But when the larger craters, which is a platform or takes a break, this allows for content from smaller craters to be pushed at the same time that viewers are looking to fill a void. This creates the perfect storm for smaller craters to explode in popularity, as was the case with Twitch. Apparently, Ninja leaving Twitch allowed for 5-6 new streamers to take his place.
然而，当较大的撞击坑作为平台或休息站时，这会同时为来自较小撞击坑的内容提供机会，这正好满足观众填充空缺的需求。这种情况为较小的撞击坑在流行度上迅速崛起创造了完美的机会，就如同Twitch平台上的情况一样。显然，Ninja离开Twitch让5-6名新的主播得以顶替他的位置。
And it seems that this same phenomenon has played out on a much bigger scale with the podcasting on YouTube.
似乎在YouTube上播客也出现了这种现象，规模更大了一些。这种现象的表现方式是什么呢？
The best part of all of this for platforms is that the crater who left often tends to come back. Rogan's deal would Spotify, for example, only last 3.5 years.
对于各个平台而言，最大的好处就是那些离开的用户经常会回来。以Spotify为例，Rogan的合作期仅为3.5年。
This means that the deal will expire in early to mid-2024, which is only a year away. If he returns to YouTube at this point, I'm sure he'll do great.
这意味着该交易将在2024年初到中期到期，只有一年的时间。如果他在那时重返YouTube，我相信他将会做得很好。
But he would no longer be the only podcasting giant on a platform. He would simply be a giant.
但他将不再是该平台唯一的播客巨人。他只是一位巨人。
表达意思：这句话意味着在某个平台上，还会有其他与此人一样成功的播客人物，因此他不再是独一无二的，而是只是成功人士中的一位。
So that explains the audience side of things. Rogan had an extremely big podcasting presence on YouTube, and his departure left tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of fans looking for an alternative, allowing for up-and-coming craters to blow up.
这就解释了观众方面的事情。罗根在YouTube上拥有极大的播客影响力，他的离开使得数千万，如果不是数亿的粉丝正在寻找替代方案，从而让新兴的博主能够崭露头角。
But what about the craters side of things? If you take a look at the biggest craters on the platform like Mr. Beast, Airwreck, and Mr. Hustaboss, you'll see that they're all taking the exact opposite approach.
那么关于弹坑的一面呢？如果你看一下像Mr. Beast、Airwreck和Mr. Hustaboss这样的平台上最大的弹坑，你会发现它们都采取了完全相反的方法。这句话的意思是，这些弹坑在做一件与前文所述的反面工作。
Every second of their videos is all about constant stimulation. Text on screen, sound effects, constant cuts, super high energy, and tons of money. Clearly, this is working out great for them, and while this style would definitely evolve over time, and it's most likely the future of YouTube.
他们的视频每一秒都充满了持续的刺激。屏幕上的文字、音效、不断的剪辑、高能量和大量的金钱。显然，这对他们来说非常有成效，虽然这种风格肯定会随着时间的推移而不断演变，并且它很可能是YouTube的未来。
I mean, there's a reason that movies are so popular, people love high production value content.
我的意思是，电影之所以如此受欢迎，是因为人们喜欢高品质的内容制作。
So with that being said, podcasters won't be taking on these behemoths anytime soon, but what podcasting does offer is a super high ROI on a much smaller scale.
因此，可以说，播客人士不会很快打败这些巨人，但播客确实在更小的规模上提供了超高的投资回报率。
Take the upfront work, for example. Creating one of my videos takes about 20 hours of work between me and my editors.
以前期的工作为例。制作我的一个视频需要我和编辑共计约20个小时的工作时间。
这句话的意思是指在制作视频前要进行大量的前期工作，包括拍摄、剪辑等多个环节，整个过程需要耗费大量时间和精力。作者提到自己和编辑们共同完成制作，也展示了一个完整制作视频需要多个人协同努力的情景。
Creating something on the level of Mr. Hustaboss takes hundreds of hours of work, and creating something on the level of Mr. Beast takes thousands of hours of work. But at the end of the day, all of this effort only translates to a 10-20 minute long video.
创造像Hustaboss先生一样的作品需要数百小时的工作，而创造像Beast先生一样的作品需要数千小时的工作。但是最终，所有这些努力只能转化为10-20分钟的视频。
Creating a podcast, on the other hand, only takes 3-5 hours of work. Worst case scenario, it might take 10 hours of work, but at the end of it, you have hours of content.
相反，制作播客只需花费3-5个小时的工作时间。最坏的情况是可能需要10个小时的工作，但最终你会拥有几个小时的内容。
So the ratio between work input and content output is simply ridiculous, and that's just the first advantage.
因此，工作投入和内容产出之间的比例非常荒谬，这只是其中的第一个优势。
The second advantage is that the demographics of podcast listeners are insane.
第二个优势是播客听众的人口统计数据极为惊人。
这句话意思是指，播客听众的人口统计数据非常令人震惊，可能是指播客听众群体非常大、多样化，或者是指他们的消费力非常强大等。
Given the educational nature of podcasts, it simply doesn't appeal to the general audience, which largely limits how big these channels can get.
由于播客的教育性质，它并不吸引大多数观众，这大大限制了这些频道的扩展规模。
But the people that it does reach is insane, as these people are generally high performers looking to improve themselves, learn and get to the next level. In fact, 30% of podcast listeners make a quarter million per year.
但是它触及到的人群是疯狂的，因为这些人通常是高绩效者，想要改进自己、学习和进入到下一个层次。事实上，30%的播客听众年薪达到25万美元。
That right there is a gold mine for advertisers leading to super high ad rates on podcasts. Not to mention, given the length of podcasts, you can stuff in like 20 mid-roll ads, leading to even more income.
这是广告商的金矿，从而导致播客广告费用极高。更不用说，鉴于播客的长度，你可以塞入像20个中间广告，带来更多收入。
But honestly, the money and recharge these smaller advantages. The real advantage, in my opinion, is the opportunity to network.
但说实话，那些小小的钱和充值只是一些小小的优势。在我看来，真正的优势是能够扩展人脉。
As a podcaster, you're constantly reaching out to leaders that you would have otherwise never reached out to. People like Elon Musk and the Mark Zuckerberg, and you get to meet and talk with these people for hours.
作为播客人，你不断地接触那些你本来不可能接触的领袖人物。比如埃隆·马斯克和马克·扎克伯格这样的人，你有机会与他们交流数小时的时间。
So, you've got low-afford, high output, evergreen content that appeals to a high value audience, and allows you to network with the most successful people in the world. No wonder every YouTuber is trying to capitalize on this opportunity.
因此，您拥有低成本、高产出、长青内容，可以吸引高价值的观众，并让您与世界上最成功的人士进行网路联系。难怪每个YouTuber都试图利用这个机会。
Not only are podcasts great for creators, viewers, and advertisers, but they're also great for platforms.
播客不仅对于创作者、观众和广告商有很大的好处，而且对于平台也非常有益。
One of the biggest challenges for modern social media platforms is trying to keep your attention. Attention is really the currency of the modern world.
当代社交媒体平台面临的最大挑战之一是如何保持你的注意力。在当代世界，注意力是真正的货币。
If you're able to corner attention, everything else will follow. This is why social media platforms are constantly dinkering with their algorithms and looking for the perfect balance.
如果你能够吸引注意力，其他的一切将随之而来。这就是社交媒体平台不断调整其算法并寻求完美平衡的原因所在。
It just so happens to be that podcasts are extraordinarily easy to recommend, as they pull in a stupid amount of watch time given their length.
恰好，播客非常容易推荐，因为它们的播放时间相对较短，但是观看时间却非常长。
Podcasts often boast 20, 30, 40 minutes of average watch time. But not only do podcasts pull in a stupid amount of watch time, but they also build habits and regular viewership.
播客常常宣称平均观看时间为20、30、40分钟。但是，播客不仅吸引了大量收听时间，还能够坚持和保持观众习惯。
Here's the thing, people aren't listening to podcasts on a Friday evening when they're trying to unwind. Rather, podcasts usually make their way into people's daily routines.
问题在于，人们通常不会在周五晚上放松时听播客。相反，播客通常是融入人们日常生活的一部分。
We're talking about commutes to work, taking a walk, cooking, folding the laundry, doing chores, etc. More times than not, podcasts are the perfect tool to make these mundane tasks more productive, and it becomes a part of the routine.
我们正在谈论上下班路程、散步、烹饪、叠衣服、做家务等事情。大多数情况下，播客是使这些单调乏味的任务更具生产力的完美工具，并且成为例行公事的一部分。
So, platforms like YouTube and Spotify don't really have to push podcasts too hard. When the time comes, people go and find the podcasts they want to listen to by themselves.
因此，像YouTube和Spotify这样的平台并不需要过于推广播客。当时机成熟时，人们会自己去找他们想听的播客。
This makes podcasts likely the easiest way for these platforms to garner and retain attention.
这意味着播客很可能是这些平台获取和保持关注的最简单的方式。
But, it's not all good news. With everyone jumping onto the podcasting scene, there's no question that this area is going to become saturated if it isn't already. I mean, there's only so many finance podcasts, gaming podcasts, fitness podcasts, and food podcasts that people can listen to.
但是，并不是所有的消息都是好消息。随着每个人都加入播客的行列，毫无疑问，如果此时还没有，这个领域将变得饱和。我的意思是，人们只能听那么多金融播客、游戏播客、健身播客和美食播客了。
Also, something else to note is that much of the popularity of these podcasts can be attributed to the mystery surrounding the guests. Take Mr. Beast, for example. Before podcasts started blowing up on YouTube, the intricacies of his business and operations were largely a mystery. But now that Jimmy has made his rounds on dozens of podcasts, much of the mystery surrounding his business is now gone.
另外需要注意的是，这些播客的很大部分流行之所以归功于有关嘉宾的神秘感。例如，以Mr. Beast为例。在播客开始在YouTube上爆红之前，他的业务和运营的复杂性在很大程度上都是一个谜。但现在，由于吉米出现在了数十个播客中，他的业务背后的许多神秘感现在已经消失了。
People's curiosities have been satiated, and a perfect example of this is Alex Hormosi. In the early days, there was a lot of curiosity regarding who this lumberjack is, and how he made $100 million. As such, his first appearance on the iced coffee hour pulled in nearly a million views.
人们的好奇心得到了满足，最好的例证是Alex Hormosi。在早期，人们对这个伐木工人是谁以及他如何挣到1亿美元充满了好奇。因此，他第一次在《冰咖啡小时》节目中亮相时吸引了近一百万的观众。
But, his second appearance on the show only garnered 300,000 views, and his latest appearance only garnered 200,000 views. This isn't to say that these podcasts are any less valuable, but simply that the mystery and interest surrounding Alex has fitted away.
然而，他第二次在节目上的出现仅获得了30万次观看，而他最新一次出现仅获得了20万次观看。这并不是说这些播客价值更低，而仅仅是人们对Alex的神秘感和兴趣已经消失了。
And as more and more podcasts interview the same people, it's likely that Alex's situation will become a trend. Now of course, there will always be new figures of interest, but there's no question that this list is not nearly as exhaustive as it once used to be, which raises the question. How sustainable really is podcasting?
随着越来越多的播客采访相同的人，Alex的情况很可能会成为一种趋势。当然，总会有新的感兴趣的人物出现，但毫无疑问，这个列表不再像以前那样详尽了，这引发了一个问题。播客是否真的可持续？
The None of this is to say that podcasting is going to die in oblivion like wine. But there's also no question that the area is becoming oversaturated, and there's only a limited amount of attention and a limited number of guests. The early signs of this are already starting to surface.
当然并不是说播客会像酒一样沉入遗忘之中。但不可否认的是，这个领域正在变得过于饱和，而关注度和优质嘉宾的数量都是有限的。这种情况的早期迹象已经开始显现。
Newer podcasts aren't garnering nearly as much momentum. Popular podcasts are getting most of their views and growth from short from content, and podcasts are having to repeat guests more and more. So I think it's safe to say that the Golden Days of Podcasts are right now or are already behind us.
较新的播客节目并没有获得很高的关注度。流行的播客节目主要依靠短内容获得最多的观看量和增长率，而播客节目不得不越来越多地邀请重复的嘉宾。因此，我认为可以明确地说，播客的黄金时代正在或已经落幕。
Again, this isn't to say that podcasts are going to disappear in oblivion, but it's more than likely that many of the newer podcasters won't end up making it, and the Legacy Podcasts will stay applies at a much more modest view count, similar to vlogging.
再次强调，这并不是说播客将会消失无人问津，但是很有可能许多新的播客制作者最终无法获得成功。传统的播客将会有较为稳定的固定受众群，观看量与视频博客类似。
Blogging isn't dead, but it's also not what used to be back in 2015 and 2016. And that may very well be the fate of podcasts as well, but that's just what I think.
博客并没有死，但它已经不像2015年和2016年那样了。也许播客的命运也将面临相同的情况，不过这只是我的看法。
Do you guys listen to podcasts? If so, which one is your favorite? Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if you'd like to see more videos about social media trends. And of course, consider checking out our Discord community, suggest footage of your ideas, and consider subscribing to see more questions logically answered.
你们听播客吗？如果是，你们最喜欢哪一个？请在下方评论区留言。如果你想看到更多有关社交媒体趋势的视频，请点赞。当然，考虑加入我们的Discord社区，提供你的想法，并考虑订阅以获取更多合理回答的问题。
But until then, I'm Hori, and I'll see you guys on the next one.
但在那之前，我是Hori，下一次再见啦。这句话的意思是“在以后的时间里，我还是Hori，期待下一次再与大家见面”。