[All Platforms] No Ads in Podcasts for Spotify Premium users

[Montesi]

I pay for my subscription. Every month for years now. The main reason I am a paid-for subscriber with Spotify is so I don't have to hear ads. As I have shifted my podcast listening from other providers to Spotify to bypass ads, both from the platform as well as integrated into the content.

I expect not to hear ads on Spotify. I understand there are ads woven into the actual content of the podcast itself, but for as big of a company and the amount of leverage Spotify has, I expect to not hear ads so long as I am paying for the service.

I reached out to Spotify and got this lazy, generic answer from Joy in Spotify Customer Support: “if you're hearing ads on podcasts using this Premium account. It's possible that the podcaster integrated that ads to their podcast content”. Thanks for breaking your back on that response.

I KNOW what the ads I’m hearing are. And I understand they can’t ask podcasters to export two versions, one with integrated ads and one without. What I expect from Spotify is to either implement metadata that tags the beginning and ending of ad segments and bypass them for us, Premium subscribers, or require podcasters to give metadata timecodes that Spotify can identify to bypass them AUTOMATICALLY.

Just to be clear, even if these identifiers are put into the content, I don’t want to have to pull my phone out to hit any sort of “skip ads” button. This is literally the ONLY reason users have Premium. So get rid of the ads. It’s actually very simple. And let’s not get started on how archaic it is to continually hit the “15sec forward” button to bypass the ads, first over shooting, then undershooting the duration of the integrated ad, only to have to make peace with hearing the last ten seconds of the ad. At that point it’s not servicing either party in the transaction.

It’s 2020. You are a huge company with a lot of leverage and a huge developer budget. I honestly can’t believe I’m even having to write this suggestion.

tl:dr - Spotify, I am a Premium member. You made a promise to me that if I became a Premium member, I wouldn’t hear ads. I’m hearing ads on podcasts. Integrated or not, I don’t care. You have the technology and power to fix it. So fix it. And make it automatic. It’s 2020.

[Cienea]

Greetings

As the other before me, i am getting adds on podcast despite having a running Premium subscription.

They are not present on the PC version of Spotify, wich let me believe they are ads added by Spotify before the Podcast itself.

Is this normal ?

[Canadianmilk]

Just so you are aware, Spotify does have the ability to take out ads. There is an option for podcast creators to opt into ads on Spotify. Podcasts who opt out of ads often will read their own ads, at the correct time, with the same tone of voice and volume they were using for the podcast.

Podcasts doing their own ad reads is not what people are upset about. People are upset over Spotify claiming it has no control over ads, when in reality it is placing its own ads separately into the clip. These are ads that are local to your area, and are current (limited time sales in your area can be advertised to you). These are obviously not read out by the podcast creators, and often are a seperate clip embedded with its own label "advertisement from Toyota/McDonald's."

This amounts to Spotify not only lying by saying they have no control, but also taking money from advertisements as well as from premium subscribers. What premium subscribers want is to have the ad free experience they pay for. Spotify is constantly increasing their prices, lying to say they can't make profits otherwise, despite showing record profits of billions.

It's important to keep companies like this accountable. They do not care about you. They will not change until they are legally forced to. Record profits are not sustainable, and should NOT be the main goal of a company.

Spotify, you need to fix this.

[vbigfish]

My particular problem is ads appearing in an audio book, that happens to be a podcast, though it's difficult to tell. These ads wake me up.

But most people here are complaining that their ad-free service has ads. An ad-free service should not have ads. Simple. Its a lie! 

Spotify could re-name their ads-free service as 'almost ads-free', or 'ads-free except for podcasts', you know, not sell a service that isn't what is says it is.

[Lime_Papi]

I don't see anyone here complaining about a podcaster reading out their own ad as part of their podcast audio file. It's up to a podcaster to decide if this is what they want to do with THEIR podcast episode, and if some listeners don't like it, they can choose to not subscribe to that podcast. On YouTube you have creators reading out ads as part of their video. It can be annoying but I am fine with it, because I respect that creators can choose to make more money this way. Note that I do not pay for YT.

The issue is with Spotify inserting their own ads during my listening to a podcast. I don't know what happened on screen because I was listening only whilst doing some things around the house, but suddenly the podcast audio was stopped and I started hearing an ad from some kind of company (not sure what it was but it sounded like one of those gambling ads). Spotify advertises itself as an ad-free experience to paying customers so IMO as a paying customer, every kind of content they offer should be ad-free. Seems like Spotify want to just make even more money so they've decided that they can do this by placing ads on podcasts and change the wording of their advertising to 'ad-free music'... Seems kind of scammy to me, like selling a service to people as "unlimited drinks refill" and then later saying "only for soda pop, not for juice".

I don't know what you're trying to tell me with your long comment about Spotify having to hire people to take out ads, that's not at all what people here are talking about. Did you read any of the comments in this thread?

[Kdramalove208]

Yes. I agree with your comment. Audio books are not podcasts and they
should absolutely be ad free. I also read another saying that local ads are
appearing on podcasts as well. That is also wrong for Spotify to do. Very
wrong. That should never happen to an ad free service. However, my entire
point for my original comment was to help others understand that podcasts
are a different entity than music and audiobooks. The podcast authors use
their own voice to talk about their own sponsorship for their own program.
I just don't know how the podcaster could edit that out for free ad
services to let Spotify be ad free on podcasts. I don't know what type of
contracts or payments are involved with this between the companies. If
there is a way to do ad free podcasts it would be extra work for someone
that would need to get paid. Which is why I said nothing is free.This will
increase our monthly payment of Spotify subscription plans. When the
podcasters' ads with their own voice are not that hard to fast forward
through at the beginning or end of a podcast.

[Kdramalove208]

I'm on our side. I hate ads. Hate them!! If a company is being sneaky
about it, then that is not OK. By putting ads in audiobooks or local ads in
podcasts that are truly annoying, loud production made commercials. That's
very wrong.
I know how business works. Everyone wants to make a lot of money. Someone
is going to pay for ad free podcasts but it's not going to be them
(Spotify) that pay for it. They will make the users pay for it. The money
has to come from somewhere. Where?? From us. I don't want our
subscription rates to go sky high because podcasters insert their own voice
for their own sponsorships in their podcasts. They need to make money to
provide that service to you. Or Spotify can raise our subscription prices
to make that happen. I don't know what the contracts are between the
companies. So it's hard to say for sure if they can be completely adfree
podcasts but still remain with the same cost of our current subscription
services. I'm just saying someone has to do the work and get paid. They
aren't going to do it for free. We will pay for it.

[Slurpan]

I pay to not have to listen to adds. I listen to pods here on Spotify and you have added adds?? Why is louder usually contains music and quite often don't match what I'm listening to so it's really disruptive!! This is absurd! I have premium and that should be without adds!! 

[Rpasinatto]

I'm having the same problem. We pay the premium subscription to avoid ads and even so, we are forced to hear ads that break the immersion during the podcasts. This is not something that you can say "We offer to the creators the possibility to add advertising" if you have a premium subscription that is paid to avoid the ads. Something must change! You can create a "middle-term" subscription, cheaper, for those who don't care about the ads for a discount in the subscription.

[KatesHere]

The Premium no ads part refers to music, not podcast. It's a popular issue, you can search for this and a lot of threads will come up in the Community.

[11120635681]

im paying since probably 10 years for spotify premium. since like half a year or a year i get spliced ads in podcasts. if there is no way to disable this, i will change providers at first convenience.