The podcast advertising business is, once again, taking it on the chin,
Speaker:blasted from inside the industry and out.
Speaker:What can podcasters and podcast listeners do about it?
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Speaker:Fucking advertising.
Speaker:There, I said it.
Speaker:Fucking advertising, some will say, is completely ruining podcasting
Speaker:on both sides of the equation.
Speaker:From ad buyers who are paying for podcast plays that ran inside of
Speaker:mobile video games - I mean seriously, read Sounds Profitable's article for
Speaker:today to get the insight on that - to listeners like me having to skip
Speaker:through, and I'm not kidding, five ads for a total of four minutes and
Speaker:fifteen seconds to get to listen to less than seventeen minutes of content.
Speaker:That's a 20% ad load, by the way.
Speaker:It bears repeating, fucking advertising.
Speaker:Only this isn't a rant against podcast advertising.
Speaker:Now, don't get me wrong, I am no fan of advertising, which is weird to say.
Speaker:Longtime listeners know that I had a decades spanning career in advertising
Speaker:until I quit the industry in 2014.
Speaker:Okay, well, "quit" may be too strong a word, as I've dabbled in/advised on
Speaker:advertising in the podcasting space for the better part of two years now.
Speaker:But no, this isn't a rant against podcast advertising because as much as we hate
Speaker:to admit it, advertising is what powers a lot of the podcasts we listen to.
Speaker:Which isn't surprising as advertising is what powers most of the content we
Speaker:consume, at least on our televisions, our mobile devices, and a lot more than that.
Speaker:So, no, I'm not complaining about podcast advertising on this
Speaker:episode of Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Instead, I'm asking you, the podcast creator, to accept the responsibility
Speaker:that comes with advertising.
Speaker:Just take a look at many of the negative comments left in the reviews of podcasts.
Speaker:One of the top complaints is almost always "Too many ads."
Speaker:And that is a valid complaint in some cases, a valid complaint that consumers
Speaker:have about a lot of the content they consume where they don't have any choice
Speaker:but to suffer through the advertising.
Speaker:But podcast listeners aren't without choices because podcast
Speaker:creators can offer ad-free options to their listeners, and that's
Speaker:easier to do today than ever before.
Speaker:Subscription services built natively into Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Speaker:Add free feeds via Patreon, Supercast, Buy Me A Coffee, even.
Speaker:Network specific apps like Wondery+ and Realm.
Speaker:Chances are, if a podcast you listen to is running ads, a lot of ads, there's
Speaker:probably an ad-free option for you.
Speaker:And by the way, if there is not, then you should feel obligated or at least
Speaker:empowered to pressure the podcasts you listen to to create an ad-free experience.
Speaker:Because again, as I just said, that's easier to do today than ever before.
Speaker:The issues that I see and have encountered recently that are inhibiting
Speaker:adoption of these ad-free sources is twofold - friction and awareness.
Speaker:Friction means that the travel from listening to a freely available on any
Speaker:podcast listening app show, and then the ad-free podcast is burdensome.
Speaker:Now, if the app has both the ad supported and the ad-free feed
Speaker:available, then this friction is lessened, but it's still there with the
Speaker:possible exception of Apple Podcasts.
Speaker:They do make it pretty easy.
Speaker:But for everything else, at least everything I'm aware of,
Speaker:it means resubscribing to a new feed, which probably isn't even
Speaker:in that listening app's directory.
Speaker:Or it means downloading a brand new app, which has no idea where you, the
Speaker:listener, were when you decided to switch to listen to the ad-free experience.
Speaker:Like I said, friction.
Speaker:And there isn't much that we podcasters can do about that friction.
Speaker:And yes, that sucks, but we can do something about the second
Speaker:inhibiting factor, awareness.
Speaker:We can make listeners aware that yes, this you are listening to is
Speaker:an ad supported feed, but there is an option, or options I guess, to
Speaker:get an ad-free listening experience.
Speaker:We need to do this reminder not just once in our episodes, but maybe
Speaker:a few times in a single episode.
Speaker:Maybe, and I'm sure the advertisers are gonna hate this idea, at the
Speaker:start of a three run ad block in the middle of the episode.
Speaker:Maybe some sort of impassioned plea that says, yeah, I know you hate all these
Speaker:ads I'm putting in there, but look, it costs about $150,000 to make this show.
Speaker:That's not a crazy number, by the way.
Speaker:And it's way more than that if you're making high quality fiction podcasts.
Speaker:It costs us that much money each and every year, so yeah, we run ads that you
Speaker:can totally opt out of by going here.
Speaker:And then being very specific where you point to on the "here" part.
Speaker:And there's one other thing that we podcasters can do.
Speaker:We can stop complaining about ads in podcasting.
Speaker:Production costs, like all costs, continue to rise.
Speaker:The quality bar continues to be raised higher and higher, causing
Speaker:podcast creators to then rise to that new level, incurring more costs.
Speaker:Podcasting may still be a fun hobby to most, and, and by the way, I
Speaker:truly hope that it stays that way.
Speaker:But the industry of podcasting is driven forward by those who treat
Speaker:podcasting like a business, and, for many, ads as well as ad-free options,
Speaker:that's a very big part of the business.
Speaker:So let's at least accept that fact, shall we?
Speaker:And with that, I shall be back next week with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Cheers!
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Tara.
Speaker:He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
Speaker:Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
Speaker:section of your podcast listening app.
Speaker:A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
Speaker:podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
Speaker:transcript, both created by Allie Press.
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.