How to start a podcast on YouTube, the playlist that becomes a show and the RSS route for an audio-first feed

On YouTube a podcast show is a playlist and each episode is a video inside it. That one sentence is the whole model, and it is YouTube's own wording from its help documentation, read on 31 October 2026. So you have two ways in. Create the podcast in YouTube Studio and upload episodes as videos, which is what you do if you are recording video anyway. Or, if you already distribute an audio-first show through an RSS feed, submit that feed and YouTube creates a video per episode using your show art. The second route is cheaper and carries real constraints, and the constraint that catches most business podcasts is the advertising rule further down this page.

Route one, create the podcast in YouTube Studio

This is the route for a show that has video, even if the video is two people at microphones. The documented steps are short.

• In YouTube Studio, choose Create and then New podcast. You may be asked to verify the account first.
• Choose Create a new podcast, or Set an existing playlist as a podcast if the episodes are already up as a playlist.
• Enter the podcast title, the description, the visibility as public or private, and a square podcast thumbnail.
• Save, then add episodes by uploading new videos or adding existing ones.

Two rules about what belongs in the playlist. YouTube states that your podcast "should only contain full-length episodes, organized in the order that they should be consumed", and that multiple seasons go in the same podcast rather than in separate ones. So trailers, clips and highlight reels live outside the podcast playlist. Shorts made to promote the show are useful and sit outside it too, and YouTube notes specifically that "Shorts created to support your podcast will not appear in YouTube Music".

YouTube may also classify a playlist as a podcast on its own. If that is wrong, the podcast settings can be removed in Studio.

Route two, deliver an existing show by RSS feed

If the show is audio-first and already hosted somewhere, you can submit the feed and let YouTube build the videos. What YouTube says it will do is create a video for each episode you select, using the show art as a static image, upload it to your channel, and then upload each new episode automatically as it appears in the feed, notifying eligible subscribers.

The list of what it will not do is the more useful half, and it is published plainly.

• It will not distribute your podcast anywhere else. The feed route puts the show on YouTube and YouTube Music only.
• It will not notify subscribers when back catalogue episodes arrive, which is the right behaviour when you import two hundred old episodes at once.
• It will not update show details automatically when you change them in the feed. Those are edited on YouTube separately.
• It will not swap the audio if you re-upload a file to the feed. An episode's audio cannot be changed once published, so a corrected episode has to be re-ingested as a new one.
• It will not accept invalid characters in titles or descriptions, and it names the angle brackets and any HTML specifically.

Two setup details worth copying. YouTube uploads your selected episodes as private videos first, and recommends waiting until all of them finish before publishing the show publicly. And it recommends checking the videos tab for monetisation or copyright issues before going public, which is how you avoid collecting claims on a whole back catalogue in one afternoon. If you already have a podcast on the channel, you can connect a feed to it from the podcast details page under RSS settings, and set a start date so the import does not duplicate episodes that are already there.

One eligibility check before you plan around this. RSS ingestion is available only in listed countries and regions, and YouTube takes the location from the channel owner rather than from where you are sitting. The published list is long and includes the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Nigeria, Pakistan and many more, so the practical step is to confirm your channel owner location is set correctly rather than to assume.

The advertising rule that catches sponsored shows

This is the clause to read before you upload a single episode of a show that has sponsors. YouTube's wording is that to comply with its Terms of Service, "podcast content you upload to YouTube cannot contain advertisements". If the show carries branded content such as host-read promotions, sponsorships or endorsements, you are required to declare it and comply with the applicable policies.

Declaring it is a checkbox, in one of two places. Either tick the branded content box on the podcast details page, or set it on the individual video details page. The practical consequence for a business show is that your sponsor reads need a declaration, every time, and that it is far easier to run the declaration as part of the upload checklist than to retrofit it across a back catalogue.

What the podcast designation actually buys you

Marking the playlist as a podcast is not cosmetic. The features YouTube lists as available to eligible podcast content are worth knowing before you decide whether to bother.

• Inclusion in YouTube Music, where YouTube notes that listeners can background and download most podcast content without a YouTube Music Premium membership. For an audio show, this is the main prize, because background playback is how podcasts are consumed.
• Podcast badges on the watch and playlist pages.
• A spotlight on the youtube.com/podcasts destination.
• Easier discovery from the watch page, recommendations to listeners with similar interests, and improved search features.

Eligibility is not automatic. YouTube states that some playlists are not eligible for podcast features even when designated, and names content the creator does not own as an example.

How to judge whether it is working

Podcast analytics sit in YouTube Studio, and the metrics YouTube lists are impressions, click-through rate, views, traffic sources and watch time, plus audience demographics and engagement. For a business show, read them in that order and in pairs.

• Impressions against click-through rate. Low impressions is a discovery problem and belongs to titles, thumbnails and the topic. High impressions with a low click-through rate is a packaging problem on an episode people can see and are choosing not to open.
• Watch time per episode, not per channel. An hour-long interview and a twelve minute explainer cannot be compared on average view duration. Compare each format with itself over time.
• Traffic sources. If almost everything arrives from your own website and email, the show is a retention asset. If search and suggested video carry real volume, it is an acquisition asset, and the two deserve different episode plans.

Questions about podcasting on YouTube

Do I need video to put a podcast on YouTube?

No. The RSS route creates a static-image video from your show art for each episode. Video helps discovery on a platform people watch, and it is not a condition of being there.

Will submitting my feed to YouTube pull the show off other platforms?

No. YouTube states it will not distribute your podcast to other platforms, and your existing hosting and feed keep working as before. You are adding a destination.

Can I fix an episode after it is published?

The audio cannot be replaced on a published video, the same as any other YouTube upload. A corrected episode has to be re-ingested, which is handled from the podcast's videos list in Studio.

Can my podcast have sponsors?

It can carry branded content such as host-read promotions, and you are required to declare it, either on the podcast details page or per video. What it cannot contain is advertisements under YouTube's Terms of Service.

Should the show live on the company channel or its own?

Put it on the company channel if the audience for the podcast is the audience for the product, because you inherit subscribers and the channel's existing watch history signals. Give it a separate channel when the show deliberately serves a wider audience than the product does and you do not want the two recommendation profiles mixed.

What does the first month of episodes need to look like?

Three to five episodes at launch, in the order someone new should hear them, with titles that name the question the episode answers rather than the guest. That gives the playlist something to recommend after the first episode finishes, which is where most of a new show's watch time comes from.

A show is found two ways now, and only one of them is YouTube's

Everything above is about being findable inside YouTube and YouTube Music. The other way a podcast picks up listeners has no dashboard. Somebody asks an assistant for the best podcast about commercial property, veterinary practice management or whatever your subject is, and gets back three or four show names with a line about each. That answer is assembled from how your show has been described in writing elsewhere, in show notes, directories, articles and guest appearances, rather than from your watch time. A show with excellent episodes and no written description of who it is for tends to be absent from it. The cheap check is to ask that question yourself in two assistants, without naming your show in the prompt, and see which shows come back and on what grounds. AI Knows Us asks those questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews and reports which names appear and what each answer was built from.