A recent management shake-up at Xiaoyuzhou, a leading Chinese podcast platform, has sparked wider concerns about the sustainability of the country’s podcast industry. The industry’s monetization dilemma was starkly illustrated by the case of “Buheshiyi,” a top-tier podcast with nearly 500,000 subscribers. Only 24.6% of experienced creators have ventured into paid content. Bilibili reported 25.9 billion minutes of watch time for video podcast content in early 2024 without major promotional effort. Critics worry that in the pursuit of visuals and revenue, podcasts risk losing their core identity: depth, intimacy, and trust, and simply become another crowded, mid-length video format.