Who reads a transcript
More people than you'd think, and for different reasons.
People who can't listen. Someone who is deaf or hard of hearing gets nothing from an audio file. A transcript is the only way they can take part in your show.
People who won't listen yet. A 50-minute episode is a big ask from a stranger. A transcript lets them skim, find the part about the thing they care about, and decide whether to press play.
People looking for one quote. "What was the book the guest mentioned?" is answered in seconds with Ctrl+F and in ten minutes of scrubbing without it.
Search engines. They read text. A page with your show notes has a paragraph for them to work with. A page with the transcript has every phrase, name and question from the conversation, any of which might match what someone types.
What the page looks like
The transcript sits on the episode page under the player and show notes, styled by the page design you've chosen. It's on the same page rather than a separate one, so the episode, its notes and its text all build up one address in search.
Long transcripts are long. A 45-minute conversation runs to several thousand words. That's fine; readers scroll or search within the page, and the length is what makes it useful to search engines.
What gets transcribed
On Pro, every episode that syncs from a connected source is transcribed. That covers podcast feeds, YouTube videos, and short-form video from TikTok and Instagram.
Transcription happens as episodes import. If you connect your show while on Pro, the whole back catalog is transcribed during that first sync. If you started on Starter and upgrade later, new episodes are transcribed from then on; ask support about the episodes that were already imported.
You can follow progress in Dashboard → Episodes. Each row has a transcript badge that reads pending, then complete.
Being honest about accuracy
Automatic transcripts are not perfect, and you shouldn't treat them as a legal record. They do well with clean audio and clear speakers. They struggle with:
- two people talking over each other
- music under speech
- names of people, places and brands
- technical vocabulary specific to your field
For most shows, the occasional misheard word doesn't hurt readers or search. If a mistake changes the meaning of something, or misspells a guest's name, email support and it'll be fixed. Editing transcripts directly in the dashboard isn't available yet.
Getting more out of the text
Once every episode has a transcript, you have a written version of your entire show. On the Business plan, ShowHub can turn an episode's transcript into a draft blog post that you edit and publish. See repurposing one recording into more content for how that works.