I don’t know when this started but I noticed it for the first time a few months ago. Some podcasts will have preroll ads that are obviously tailored to me since they are not in the same language as the podcast, instead they are in my native language and if I connect to a VPN in another country the ad will change to one from that country. They also seem to appear regardless of podcast app. I have used both AntennaPod and Spotify. AntennaPod is free so I guess they source their podcasts from some third party website that could be adding in the ads. But since I am paying for Spotify I am expecting not to have to listen to any ads. So who is adding in these ads? Can I get rid of them or am I just stuck with them?
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I don’t listen to podcasts but to answer this question
But since I am paying for Spotify I am expecting not to have to listen to any ads.
Companies are forced to increase revenue every year. It means the amount of crap will just keep on increasing.
Ong, first they eliminate the competition and then they start going for profit, which always goes hand in hand with enshitification, for the very simple reason that if there was something they could add to increase profits and user satisfaction at the same time, they would’ve already added it.
They are not trying to make the app work for the user but against him, to take his data, privacy, attention, money etc.
Oh absolutely. I understand that. But is Spotify even the one who is adding/profiting from the ads? I seems like this is coming from someone else since the ads are also on AntennaPod
Corporations need to make profit somehow. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two Spotify would introduce payed plan with ads.
The ads are put in by whoever makes the podcast.
Sure they decide that the ad should exist, but how? When I see a mid-roll ad on YouTube for example it was put there by the person who uploaded the video but the content of the ad is delivered by youtube. Who is delivering the content of these ads?
Blaming Spotify for this is like blaming the company that made your TV for showing you ads that are part of the broadcast. Unless Spotify makes the specific podcast you’re listening to, they’re just playing you the content someone else made, including the ads they included in that content.
“Forced”
yeah, a few weeks ago I first heard a random US insurance ad or some crap like that, in English, when listening to a podcast from a different country. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on.
We need Sponsorblock for podcasts
Yep.
In the mean time, on my phone at least, holding volume up makes it skip 30 seconds. Good if phone is with you at the time.
Problem is that we don’t know how long the ads take, we need to look how sponsor block will handle youtube new ads
IME ad times are pretty consistent by podcast feed when they’re artificially inserted like that.
When we’re talking product promotions during the podcast recording, they’re only consistent for a given episode, but that’s what sponsorblock is for.
Just to toss my feedback in the ring: I listen to a podcast themed around a local sports team on Spotify, and I often download them to my phone locally because I’m old and still have the habits of being on a limited data plan even though I’ve had unlimited for years.
I noticed the ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll) and was surprised because a lot of them tend to be local ads for various cities across the US. HVAC services in Chicago, lawyers in Houston, etc. None for the city where the podcasters live, most of their audience lives, or the spots team is based.
I don’t always download the episodes to listen, only if I know I’m going to be out , or if I’m mowing the lawn and might occasionally stretch my wifi range. I haven’t tested fully, but it seems as though the ads only get baked into the audio upon download.
I also noticdd a few months ago that downloading a podcast I was partway through resets my progress, which has been incredibly annoying. If the ads are inserted at the time of download, that would make sense because the length of the audio would change.
I am developing a podcast app and I can’t prevent it either
They have a github thread for it https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/4159
Thanks, that’s good to know! Although this seems to be more related to sponsors. Like the podcast host doing an ad-read. I don’t mind them as much because then at least the creators of the podcast are getting all the money and the ad is not tracking me to figure out what ad to serve me. What I am referring to is more like a regular ad that you would hear on the radio that has been stitched on to the beginning of the episode.
I thought it’s applied to both
I guess so, but sponsors are easier to skip since that are always the same length. If the ad changes length you cant use the time stamps to skip it automatically
Why isn’t there ad blockers for podcast apps, like LibreTube does for YouTube?
The ads can be variable length and tailored to whoever is downloading the podcast. SponsorBlock for podcasts does indeed need to be a thing (but it may be tricky to implement and easily subverted).
I just started listening to Ostium recently and one of the episodes was around 20 minutes long, but the first 11 were commercials. It was infuriating.
I always ditch a podcast the second i hear an ad or something that resembles paid sponsored content. Fuck that, I’ll pay them if I find the quality worth it, ads are cancer.
I hope some day AI will be incorporated into a podcast player to be able to know the difference between an add and the podcast and automatically skip all adds. Finally, there would be a good use for AI :)
It is very hard to maintain the profitability of a podcast. To get around adblockers, many podcasters have taken to editing the ads into the podcast before the podcast is uploaded to any platform. I suspect this may be the case for some of the instances you mention. These ads are not added by Spotify or any third party. The podcaster either does a sponsored ad-read or receives the audio/video for the ad from a sponsor and adds it to the podcast in post. Not much you can do at that point other than watch the cast on YouTube and use SponsorBlock.
No that’s not it. As I mentioned in the post, these ads change based on my location. They are absolutely not added by the people making the podcast because they are not even in the same language as the rest of the podcast.
