According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, YouTube has been eying the audiobook market from not-so afar. The Google-owned streaming platform has reportedly “had discussions with publishers in recent months about developing an audiobook feature,” with a potential expansion into the field as early as 2027.
It’s currently unclear what form said “audiobook feature” could assume. It’s possible that the company could rope in audiobooks into its YouTube Premium subscription service, or, alternatively, it could offer individual sales on specific audiobooks instead. At the time of writing, YouTube itself hasn’t commented on the report.
- notable shows
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Kitchen Nightmares, Merlin
- notable movies
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Clueless, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, How to Train Your Dragon, Mean Girls, Star Trek
- Premium Subscription
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Yes, $13.99 per month
- Originals
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No
- Live TV
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No
YouTube is one of the biggest internet video platforms of them all, with news content, viral videos, niche fandoms, and everything in between.
Audible and Spotify could soon face stiff competition
YouTube is primed to take a slice out of the audiobook market
Currently, the audiobook market is largely dominated by Audible and Spotify, with a smaller chunk of the market taken up by Apple Books and Google Play Books & Audiobooks. YouTube, for its part, already hosts a vast array of sanctioned (and non-sanctioned) audiobook videos on its website, making an officially licensed audiobook setup a natural extension of its service offerings.
Over on Google Play Books & Audiobooks, each individual audiobook can be purchased on its own, but I reckon a theoretical YouTube audiobook feature would likely rely instead on a recurring subscription model. My best guess is that Google would rope audiobooks into YouTube Premium, perhaps offering up a dedicated audiobook subscription tier for those not interested in Premium’s video-facing perks.
Personally, I welcome more diversity in the audiobook space, and I hope to see YouTube spur on some much-needed competition.
Either way, if this report proves accurate, both Audible and Spotify have reason to be worried. Stiff competition from Google, mixed with YouTube’s market ubiquity, could prove a real challenge to overcome for said rival companies. Then again, licensing deals are a complicated environment to navigate through, and Audible and Spotify both have pre-existing agreements and contracts with publishers that can’t be overlooked.
Personally, I welcome more diversity in the audiobook space, and I hope to see YouTube spur on some much-needed competition. I’m a big fan of audiobooks, and I’m a big YouTube watcher, and so the idea of blending the two together is certainly an enticing proposition. Of course, Google itself has a bad track record when it comes to supporting new initiatives in the long-term, and so if YouTube audiobooks do come to fruition, they could very well disappear as quickly as they arrive.
