Why Podcasts Are Moving to Video (and Why We're Still Mostly Listening)

Tara Jabbari watched Age of Audio on a United flight, and a few months later she had our director, Shaun Michael Colón, on her podcast, MediaMaker Spotlight.

Partway through the conversation, they got to the question everyone in podcasting is asking right now: why is everything moving to video?

Shaun’s take is more nuanced than “audio is dead” or “you must do video.”

It’s about discovery

“The pivot to video isn’t just necessarily about the video,” Shaun said in the interview, “if you want your podcast to get found, your odds are much better on YouTube than in a podcast app.”

His point is that for many shows, YouTube’s algorithm is better for discovery than anything podcast apps have offered. Once you’re done watching a video, YouTube keeps putting the next thing in front of you. If you watch a lot of podcast episodes on a certain topic, YouTube will keep serving you more episodes (from different shows) on that topic.

Shaun’s seen the power of video when sharing clips from Age of Audio. These posts on social media get hundreds of thousands of views and reach viewers who wouldn’t have normally stumbled on the film.

Faces build connection

Shaun’s second point is that people connect with faces. That’s true on YouTube, and it’s even more true in the clips that travel on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Tara agreed: audiences like seeing a host’s mannerisms and facial expressions, and watching how two co-hosts react to each other. She’s noticed this most with younger listeners.

Watching, but mostly listening

Shaun doesn’t think video has replaced listening. He thinks most people “watching” a podcast on YouTube are mostly listening.

He does it himself: he watches plenty of shows on YouTube, but he’s listening to them, glancing at the screen now and then. “I’m not sitting there staring at two people talking for two hours,” he said.

Tara has seen the same thing with younger audiences: the video is playing on their phones, but they’re still really listening. So video gets a show discovered, and audio is still how people experience it.

What audio still does better

Broadcast radio is one voice speaking to many people, usually through a speaker. Podcasts, though, are something you choose, and usually something you hear through headphones. Even a show with a huge audience feels like the host is talking to you, “inside your head.” Tara compared it to reading a book.

That intimacy is what Age of Audio is really about. Shaun calls the film a love letter to narrative shows like This American Life, Radiolab, 99% Invisible and Serial, which use music and storytelling to build a theater of the mind for the listener.

It’s also why podcast audiences feel so close to hosts, and why the medium has always been so collaborative. Shows grow by recommending each other, having each other on, and sharing each other’s episodes in their feeds.

The trade-off: who sets the rules

Podcasting has traditionally run on RSS, so no single company controls it. Shaun calls it one of the few mass distribution systems that has no central owner.

YouTube is different. He’s quick to say it’s amazing, and plenty of creators have built big audiences there. But in the end, that work serves a company that profits from it and can change the rules whenever it likes. “For better or worse,” Shaun said. He isn’t calling it bad, just different.

So the move to video is a trade. Creators get better discovery and the connection of a face. In return, they give up some of the independence that made podcasting what it is.

Video, the open way: HLS in RSS

In March 2026, with iOS 26.4, Apple Podcasts started streaming video using HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). HLS is the adaptive streaming technology YouTube and Netflix use. Instead of downloading one huge video file, the app streams whatever quality your connection can handle, and you can switch between watching and listening.

There’s a catch: Apple takes HLS video through its own private API, not from your RSS feed. So the Podcast Standards Project has been pushing an open version. The same HLS stream goes into a tag called podcast:alternateEnclosure in a show’s normal feed. The regular audio file stays as the main enclosure, so every app still plays the show. Apps that understand the tag can offer the video too.

Transistor and RSS.com both publish HLS video this way, along with hosts like Captivate, Flightcast, Podbean and Omny Studio. On the listening side, video from the feed now plays in Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Fountain, True Fans and Podcast Guru, with limited support in Amazon Music and iHeart.

This is the point Shaun keeps returning to. Podcasting works because no one owns it. HLS in RSS means video can travel the same way audio always has: one open feed, playable in any app that chooses to support it.

In addition to distributing video via RSS, many hosting providers (like Transistor and RSS.com) will also publish the video to YouTube. This allows you to maintain independent distribution channels, while also getting the benefits of YouTube’s algorithm.

See the film

Shaun says Age of Audio acknowledges the shift to video but doesn’t dig deep into it. The film’s heart is in audio storytelling, and in a question he thinks matters even more: is art worth making if it doesn’t make a lot of money?

The film isn’t widely distributed yet. Sign up for the email list at aoamovie.com to hear first about screenings and when the film becomes available, and follow @aoamovie on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Thanks to Tara Jabbari and the MediaMaker Spotlight team. You can watch the full conversation on YouTube, or just listen.