It seems to me that Spotify just wants ad payers to pay them instead of the podcasters. They want to become the middleman and take their cut for allowing ads. Everyone saying good isn't seeing that this is just Spotify being greedy
Sure, but also I don't want to listen to ads, so making it easier to skip benefits the user. Not my job to worry about how every random dude is monetizing his podcast on a platform I already pay to use!
But when Apple takes a cut from Spotify, a massive corporation, when a subscription is bought through the App Store, it’s a huge scandal and Spotify makes a stink. When Spotify takes action to slash the direct revenue of podcasters, often not corporations but individual creators, to force them to use their own system so Spotify can take their cut, it’s apparently fair game?
Spotify is evil guys. It’s time to ditch it for literally any alternative.
I didn't realize this was only being tested. I've had it for a couple weeks and LOVE it.
What's most interesting is that since Spotify clearly has the timestamps of the ads, they could just automatically skip over them without even having to click a button at all.
But they are still requiring that that the ad break start, then you go to your phone and the button to skip ahead is there, and you have to tap it. For every single ad break (but not every single ad).
So honestly, at the end of the day it isn't really any different from just fast forwarding by 15 seconds a bunch of times and then rewinding 15 seconds once you've gotten back to the podcast. It just lets you do it more efficiently. But it's still not entirely automatic or anything. You still have to tap the button on every single ad break.
So I suspect that it's not actually going to change anything about the proportion of ads that get consumed. Because the people going to their phone to tap the button are presumably the same people who are already going to their phone to tap the fast-forward button anyways.
I have been building a podcast app and ad detection turned out to be much harder than expected. Ads for the same show can vary depending on where you are listening from. For example with the Smart List podcast, I get almost no ads in Chile, but when I listened from the US there were quite a few. This makes it tricky to build a consistent ad skipping feature since the ad patterns are not fixed and change based on region.
An automatic skip would be nice. Currently listening to „Love Trapped“ and the „iheart“-ad breaks are on another level. After getting bombarded every episode and multiple times with the same 4-5 annoying ads I definitely know what shows I won’t be listening to. (Love Trapped is really good)
Imagine paying to be ads free. Then Spotify says, hold up a sec, could we interest you in a different feature, while slowly introducing ads to your ad free experience.
"Lucky for you, there's a way to skip! Only 3,99 added to your current subscription".
I'm truly old-school. I still listen to my podcasts with an iPod Classic. Skip the ads manually. As for my podcast, I'm not worried about monitization yet -- only 70 listeners.
Creators can just refuse to publish on Spotify. Podcasts are the one medium I support them having ads, as long as it's not overdone - looking at you Iheart, Behind the bastards.
I honestly would not mind ads if they stuck to ad format. For generations advertising in media was capped at 30 sec (exceptions being late night ad spots that last an hour), but recently I’ve noticed that the ads produced by podcasters can last upwards of 2.5 to 3 minutes while they ramble a script that they wrote adding their own flair to the required content from the sponsor. THEN I have to scrub through 3 more minutes of actual advertising.
One podcast I listen to often has both hosts doing one of these extended ads back to back before a full on ad break.
This excess can only be avoided by smashing the fast forward key in rapid succession. I want the creators to be paid, I really do. But, the system seems designed to hurt them with this method.
Yup. Podcasters can be greedy too, and consumers respond to that the same way they do to huge corporate greed that goes too far. The long, LOUD, intrusive ads are things I will never listen to, and may drive me away from podcasts I'd otherwise listen to.
I love the 30 second skip and rewind buttons on podcasts clients. I wish they would have a 3, 5 and 10 second skips as well. But sometimes you skip too much. Even if scrubbing on the screen works that’s too much time spent away from the road for me where I mostly listen to podcasts.
It’s a bit disappointing to see so many podcasters saying they skip ads when listening to podcasts. I always listen to support the creators I’m listening to
Good, I hate ads. Sell merch or premium subscription, or push your patreon, I don't need to hear about life lock or whatever bullshit for the umpteen millionth time. Instead of clicking skip 6 times, I can hit skip one time.
I’ve been listening to podcasts through non Spotify apps since before Spotify had podcasts and I use the 30 sec skip if I do come across an add. This post is alarmist and not well thought out
People in this thread that are talking about how making skipping ads easier is a convenient thing don't realize the monkey's paw situation they're in. This is really bad.
Almost none of the podcasts I listen to have ads, most have extra content on Patreon and use that for support. Ad driven shows are the biggest pods but not all pods or the best.
The whole podcast market right now is propped up by ads. I'm glad you have ad-free patreon stuff. I do too, but that isn't going to support all the shows people like listening to (public radio, for example, which I also pay for).
I support NPR but that’s a whole other thing than most podcasts. I don’t really go out of my way looking for ad free just the topic focused pods and history ones I’m into are all ad free.
They’re also (maybe not big news but industry news) going to start introducing podcast video ads at large (it was in Beta.) If I had to theorize, this is so that they can pack in the ads in vid formats, and then charge Premium users $5-7 more in premium for a skip button.
The really strange thing is is that while if you listen to a podcast on Spotify mobile it'll play the ads but if you listen to the podcast through Spotify but via Echo devices it seems to skip ads for me it has been doing this for a while.
I thought this exact same thing. I always am able to completely forward the ads on podcasts. And when they added the “caption/lyric” feature for podcast I just scroll down and hit the words where it begins after the ad and it skips them entirely.
Nah, Apple Podcasts doesn't have a button to skip directly to the end of the ads. I just use the Transcripts feature. Usually when there's an ad it'll show like a "loading" scene or something of the sort but you just click the next available transcript section and it skips past all the ads/sponsors. Works surprisingly well. So thankful for the transcripts lol.
You can also use pocket casts and pay for premium, they let you set the skip ahead to however many seconds you want. I think I have mine set to like 2 mins so 1 click is all I need and I don't care if I over skip and miss 10 seconds
You manually doing it is different as it’s not registering specifically as an ad skip. There’s tons of different ways podcast networks track these things (I work at one!) but scrubbing through 60 seconds doesn’t flag anything, so it would still count to an advertiser.
If there’s a specific button… it’ll probably - because Spotify isn’t dumb - have some sort of data pixel attached to it that’ll inform the ad campaign it was a skip.
But my guess is that this isn’t altruistic as that is also money Spotify loses. They’ll probably add it as a new charge for Premium.
"some podcasts are starting with more than eight minutes of ads. "
8 minutes???? I don't even start with ads or go above 1 minute in mine! Are Netflix ads that long? The only time I've seen TV ad blocks longer than 3 minutes was in South Korea when they'd have an ad block at the end of a movie but before the next show, so roughly 10 minutes give or take.
Is this some new attention economy thing where hosts assume the audience isn't paying attention until 5 minutes in?
Yes, one of my podcasts has an ad that the podcaster speaks and it is 4 minutes long. Add that to the other one or two and it comes out with 8 minutes on the front end and 8 on the back. Another podcast I used to listen to is 15 minutes long, but with 3 ad breaks within that time frame, the ads run as long as the episode. It is ridiculous.
I listen to podcasts constantly I've never run into 1 with 8 minutes of ads at the start. If I did that would be the last time I listened to that podcast.
Those are the two criminals in this conversation I was here to bring up and especially iHeart Radio.
Let us not forget that good ol' iHeart did the Comcast trip where they were so disliked they had to change their name and branding to start anew. Comcast became Xfinity. iHeart used to be ClearChannel. If you were listening to radio in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, ClearChannel had the perfect avenue to legally move in and enshittify every radio station in the United States for monetary control and gain. Every FM rock radio station circa 2002/03 was programmed to have an identical format in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Chicago, and...you get the picture. This happened with every genre.
When podcasts were taking off, it was our perfect avenue to leave FM radio in the dust. iHeart picked up on that trend and decided to get in the game, thus ruining podcasts forever. Now they are just a breeding ground for podcast episodes being the noise between the ads - just like FM radio.
I can't say it loud enough how much I hate ClearChannel and iHeart Radio.
One of the reasons I stopped listening to Tim Ferriss. He starts with 6-7 min of ads, and still has a 2 min ad break every 10-15 min in the episode. I give Lex Fridman credit though. He says up front he puts all the ads at the beginning so the episode doesn't get interrupted with ad breaks. So he has 7-8 min at the start but that's it.
It seems to me that Spotify just wants ad payers to pay them instead of the podcasters. They want to become the middleman and take their cut for allowing ads. Everyone saying good isn't seeing that this is just Spotify being greedy
ReplyDeleteSure, but also I don't want to listen to ads, so making it easier to skip benefits the user. Not my job to worry about how every random dude is monetizing his podcast on a platform I already pay to use!
DeleteGood.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteBut when Apple takes a cut from Spotify, a massive corporation, when a subscription is bought through the App Store, it’s a huge scandal and Spotify makes a stink. When Spotify takes action to slash the direct revenue of podcasters, often not corporations but individual creators, to force them to use their own system so Spotify can take their cut, it’s apparently fair game?
Spotify is evil guys. It’s time to ditch it for literally any alternative.
Good!
ReplyDeletethey want to force podcasts published on Spotify to use their own internal ads tools, i didn’t even need to read further to guess that
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize this was only being tested. I've had it for a couple weeks and LOVE it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's most interesting is that since Spotify clearly has the timestamps of the ads, they could just automatically skip over them without even having to click a button at all.
But they are still requiring that that the ad break start, then you go to your phone and the button to skip ahead is there, and you have to tap it. For every single ad break (but not every single ad).
So honestly, at the end of the day it isn't really any different from just fast forwarding by 15 seconds a bunch of times and then rewinding 15 seconds once you've gotten back to the podcast. It just lets you do it more efficiently. But it's still not entirely automatic or anything. You still have to tap the button on every single ad break.
So I suspect that it's not actually going to change anything about the proportion of ads that get consumed. Because the people going to their phone to tap the button are presumably the same people who are already going to their phone to tap the fast-forward button anyways.
Spotify is doing this to make the podcasts use their own ad platform, don’t fall for this.
DeleteThey're gonna raise the prices for premium now, right? :(
ReplyDeletethey would do that anyway
DeleteNo, because for ads embedded into the audio stream, Spotify was never taking a cut in the first place.
DeleteSo this is just SponsorBlock but for Spotify lol. Not a new concept by any means but very much appreciated
ReplyDeleteYoutube already does this.
ReplyDeleteYoutube doesn't do this without Sponsorblock. This is for ads reads inside podcasts not Spotify provided ads.
DeleteIt absolutely does.
Deleteyoutube premium does this without any extra plugins, even on tv
DeleteOh it does, first time I've heard of Jump Ahead.
DeleteAlthough you can get SponsorBlock free without Premium on Android TVs with Smarttube, and Android phones with Revanced.
Youtube sucks ass
Deletehow do i get youtube to suck mine
DeleteLmao
DeleteI have been building a podcast app and ad detection turned out to be much harder than expected. Ads for the same show can vary depending on where you are listening from. For example with the Smart List podcast, I get almost no ads in Chile, but when I listened from the US there were quite a few. This makes it tricky to build a consistent ad skipping feature since the ad patterns are not fixed and change based on region.
ReplyDeleteI'm not clicking that link.
ReplyDeleteAn automatic skip would be nice. Currently listening to „Love Trapped“ and the „iheart“-ad breaks are on another level. After getting bombarded every episode and multiple times with the same 4-5 annoying ads I definitely know what shows I won’t be listening to. (Love Trapped is really good)
ReplyDeleteGet off Spotify as soon as you can.
ReplyDeleteImagine paying to be ads free. Then Spotify says, hold up a sec, could we interest you in a different feature, while slowly introducing ads to your ad free experience.
ReplyDelete"Lucky for you, there's a way to skip! Only 3,99 added to your current subscription".
Aren't we lucky consumers? 🤣
I'm truly old-school. I still listen to my podcasts with an iPod Classic. Skip the ads manually. As for my podcast, I'm not worried about monitization yet -- only 70 listeners.
ReplyDeletewhat? are they adding the "skip 30s." button that all other podcatchers have?
ReplyDeleteNo, it's a special button that skips exactly to the end of the ad break regardless of how long it is.
Deletei don't fuck with spotify for podcasts regardless. not trying to give these mfers a monopoly on everything.
ReplyDeleteSame. I hated they overpaid Rogan, Simmons etc in an attempt to corner the market on podcasts. Their UI is also awful.
DeleteI'm already paying for a subscription for Spotify - always annoyed me that I had ads. I use an ad-blocker when I watch TV, so what's the difference?
ReplyDeleteI've seen this a few time in my recent podcasts and it made me so happy. I just can't deal with 3 mins of ads every 10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI remember when DVRs had this feature then got sued and removed the feature.
ReplyDeletePues a ver si lo ponen en los podcast
ReplyDeleteCreators can just refuse to publish on Spotify. Podcasts are the one medium I support them having ads, as long as it's not overdone - looking at you Iheart, Behind the bastards.
ReplyDeleteThis would make me return to Spotify from PocketCasts.
ReplyDeleteI honestly would not mind ads if they stuck to ad format. For generations advertising in media was capped at 30 sec (exceptions being late night ad spots that last an hour), but recently I’ve noticed that the ads produced by podcasters can last upwards of 2.5 to 3 minutes while they ramble a script that they wrote adding their own flair to the required content from the sponsor. THEN I have to scrub through 3 more minutes of actual advertising.
ReplyDeleteOne podcast I listen to often has both hosts doing one of these extended ads back to back before a full on ad break.
This excess can only be avoided by smashing the fast forward key in rapid succession. I want the creators to be paid, I really do. But, the system seems designed to hurt them with this method.
Yup. Podcasters can be greedy too, and consumers respond to that the same way they do to huge corporate greed that goes too far. The long, LOUD, intrusive ads are things I will never listen to, and may drive me away from podcasts I'd otherwise listen to.
DeleteI love the 30 second skip and rewind buttons on podcasts clients. I wish they would have a 3, 5 and 10 second skips as well. But sometimes you skip too much. Even if scrubbing on the screen works that’s too much time spent away from the road for me where I mostly listen to podcasts.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a bit disappointing to see so many podcasters saying they skip ads when listening to podcasts. I always listen to support the creators I’m listening to
ReplyDeleteThey've had this for years. It's called the skip forward button
ReplyDeleteRisky move for a company who makes 25% of their revenue from ads.
ReplyDeleteGood, I hate ads. Sell merch or premium subscription, or push your patreon, I don't need to hear about life lock or whatever bullshit for the umpteen millionth time. Instead of clicking skip 6 times, I can hit skip one time.
ReplyDeleteOooh that's a pending disaster. Podcasts struggle enough as it is without their ad revenue collapsing.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Spotify should just pay them royalties from the subscription that we pay!?
DeleteI love it.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been listening to podcasts through non Spotify apps since before Spotify had podcasts and I use the 30 sec skip if I do come across an add. This post is alarmist and not well thought out
ReplyDeletePeople in this thread that are talking about how making skipping ads easier is a convenient thing don't realize the monkey's paw situation they're in. This is really bad.
ReplyDeleteAlmost none of the podcasts I listen to have ads, most have extra content on Patreon and use that for support. Ad driven shows are the biggest pods but not all pods or the best.
DeleteThe whole podcast market right now is propped up by ads. I'm glad you have ad-free patreon stuff. I do too, but that isn't going to support all the shows people like listening to (public radio, for example, which I also pay for).
DeleteI support NPR but that’s a whole other thing than most podcasts. I don’t really go out of my way looking for ad free just the topic focused pods and history ones I’m into are all ad free.
DeleteThey’re also (maybe not big news but industry news) going to start introducing podcast video ads at large (it was in Beta.) If I had to theorize, this is so that they can pack in the ads in vid formats, and then charge Premium users $5-7 more in premium for a skip button.
DeleteSpotify video ads are definitely becoming more of a thing. The platform is clearly trying to get eyeballs to complement ears.
DeleteI’m confused. Video ads have been a thing in podcasts for a long time
DeleteThere’s a difference between the new type and the old ones!
DeleteI noticed it this week on a podcast I listen to. Pretty handy.
ReplyDeleteThe really strange thing is is that while if you listen to a podcast on Spotify mobile it'll play the ads but if you listen to the podcast through Spotify but via Echo devices it seems to skip ads for me it has been doing this for a while.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I share a family Spotify account. She hears ads on her iPhone but we don't hear ads in the Tesla. I'm not sure what's different....
DeleteOne is a car the other a mobile phone. The former is used to move from one location to another the latter to make phone calls.
Delete😂💀😂💀😂💀😂💀😂💀
DeleteI understand the difference between a car and a phone.
DeleteWhy do ads play on a phone but not in the car on the same Spotify account?
So what Apple Podcast app has had the entire time then?
ReplyDeleteI thought this exact same thing. I always am able to completely forward the ads on podcasts. And when they added the “caption/lyric” feature for podcast I just scroll down and hit the words where it begins after the ad and it skips them entirely.
DeleteWait, what? I listen with the Poscasts app all the time. There’s a button to skip directly to the end of ads?
DeleteNah, Apple Podcasts doesn't have a button to skip directly to the end of the ads. I just use the Transcripts feature. Usually when there's an ad it'll show like a "loading" scene or something of the sort but you just click the next available transcript section and it skips past all the ads/sponsors. Works surprisingly well. So thankful for the transcripts lol.
DeletePretty much the same thing I do on the Overcast app.
DeleteNot to the end of ads but you can skip like 30 seconds at a time.
Deletei don’t think so? i’ll just tell my phone “go forward 5 minutes,” or whatever
DeleteBut also I listen to pods that have maybe 2-3 mins of ads in the beginning, and a couple throughout so I just skip when they come up.
DeleteIt's actually nice of Spotify to give me a button to skip in 3 seconds when I normally have to hit a button 5 times to sip ahead 3 minutes.
ReplyDeleteYou can also use pocket casts and pay for premium, they let you set the skip ahead to however many seconds you want. I think I have mine set to like 2 mins so 1 click is all I need and I don't care if I over skip and miss 10 seconds
DeleteI usually skip most ads anyway.
ReplyDeletethe point is the ease of access to the function will lower the value of ads on the platform overall, lowering pay for creators
DeleteYeah spamming the +15s button is basically muscle memory for me anyway. Having a dedicated button would defintely be a nice QoL upgrade though.
DeleteComment has been removed
DeleteYou manually doing it is different as it’s not registering specifically as an ad skip. There’s tons of different ways podcast networks track these things (I work at one!) but scrubbing through 60 seconds doesn’t flag anything, so it would still count to an advertiser.
DeleteIf there’s a specific button… it’ll probably - because Spotify isn’t dumb - have some sort of data pixel attached to it that’ll inform the ad campaign it was a skip.
But my guess is that this isn’t altruistic as that is also money Spotify loses. They’ll probably add it as a new charge for Premium.
Man I bet it's gonna be so that they can carve out unskippable ad zones where the 15sec button is gone and then charge a premium to be in that zone.
DeleteDing ding ding we have a winner.
DeleteA lot of people do. This discussion is about spotify making it easier to do so with one click taking you right to the start of your content.
DeleteI noticed the button pop up last week and it's great as a user.
"some podcasts are starting with more than eight minutes of ads. "
ReplyDelete8 minutes???? I don't even start with ads or go above 1 minute in mine! Are Netflix ads that long? The only time I've seen TV ad blocks longer than 3 minutes was in South Korea when they'd have an ad block at the end of a movie but before the next show, so roughly 10 minutes give or take.
Is this some new attention economy thing where hosts assume the audience isn't paying attention until 5 minutes in?
Your mom's house starts with 20 minutes of ads. I swear.
DeleteLet me introduce you to iHeartradio
DeleteI can't even listen to iHeart podcasts because the ads seem like they can be 20 minutes or more
DeleteFootball Ramble infamously had 5 minutes of ads to start every episode for a period
DeleteYes, one of my podcasts has an ad that the podcaster speaks and it is 4 minutes long. Add that to the other one or two and it comes out with 8 minutes on the front end and 8 on the back. Another podcast I used to listen to is 15 minutes long, but with 3 ad breaks within that time frame, the ads run as long as the episode. It is ridiculous.
DeleteI listen to podcasts constantly I've never run into 1 with 8 minutes of ads at the start. If I did that would be the last time I listened to that podcast.
DeleteNever listened through The Dollop's back-catalog? Highly recommend, but skip past the 10 minutes of ads at the start.
DeleteI have but I dont remember them having so many ads. It's been a few years though.
DeleteI’ll give up on a podcast immediately if it starts with a few minutes of ads.
Deleteyour kickstarter sucks will have a solid 15 minute ad break lol
Deletethere's a good number of wondery and I heart radio podcasts that do 2 ad breaks with 3-4 ad reads per break
DeleteAdd A-Cast to this list, as well.
DeleteThose are the two criminals in this conversation I was here to bring up and especially iHeart Radio.
DeleteLet us not forget that good ol' iHeart did the Comcast trip where they were so disliked they had to change their name and branding to start anew. Comcast became Xfinity. iHeart used to be ClearChannel. If you were listening to radio in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, ClearChannel had the perfect avenue to legally move in and enshittify every radio station in the United States for monetary control and gain. Every FM rock radio station circa 2002/03 was programmed to have an identical format in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Chicago, and...you get the picture. This happened with every genre.
When podcasts were taking off, it was our perfect avenue to leave FM radio in the dust. iHeart picked up on that trend and decided to get in the game, thus ruining podcasts forever. Now they are just a breeding ground for podcast episodes being the noise between the ads - just like FM radio.
I can't say it loud enough how much I hate ClearChannel and iHeart Radio.
If I'm looking for a new podcast, I skip both of these networks. The ads are so intrusive, especially if the episode is already short.
DeleteOne of the reasons I stopped listening to Tim Ferriss. He starts with 6-7 min of ads, and still has a 2 min ad break every 10-15 min in the episode. I give Lex Fridman credit though. He says up front he puts all the ads at the beginning so the episode doesn't get interrupted with ad breaks. So he has 7-8 min at the start but that's it.
DeleteI don't have problem with that much ads in the beginning if there aren't any through out the episode
Delete