Meta has announced the exact date after which podcasts will no longer be available to users of the platform - June 3rd.
The podcast service, which has existed on the Facebook platform for almost a year, will no longer be supported and is no longer considered a priority for the development of the platform. From a statement by Meta, it became known that by June 3, the podcast service and Soundbites service, will stop working, and the audio hub common to them will not be supported. In turn, the Live Audio Rooms audio chat service will no longer be supported, the functionality of it will be partly included in the range of Facebook Live services.
Podcasters who run their audio blogs on Facebook will face an inability to upload new content in the coming days. However, access to already published podcast episodes will continue and will be available until early June, when the service will be completely discontinued.
The podcast service was introduced by Facebook back in April 2021. Interest in audio content and the development of social interaction based on audio communication during that period was shown by many large companies. One important factor behind this interest was the meteoric success of the Clubhouse audio chat service. However, against the backdrop of stronger competitors in the face of, first of all, Apple and Spotify, Facebook's efforts did not eventually lead to any significant results, and it was decided to stop the development of podcasts.