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

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.

Updated on 2023-04-15

Hey folks,

The Ideas section provides users with the opportunity to share their opinion on what features and app improvements can be developed, to make Spotify better. This idea however, in it's core fundamentals, requires to change how the Premium subscription works and what opportunities Spotify offers to Podcast creators.

 

As part of the Premium subscription, all music can be enjoyed ad-free. And while Spotify doesn’t play ads that interrupt the music listening experience of Premium subscribers, some podcasts may include advertising, host-read endorsements, or sponsorship independently of the streaming platforms featuring such podcasts.

 

Providing a way to circumvent those is not something that our Idea submission process can accomplish.


This doesn't mean that your feedback isn't heard and that this request couldn't be fulfilled by some other means in the future. On the contrary, this is being monitored and we invite everyone to share their opinion in a constructive manner. We will then ensure to pass it on to the relevant teams.

 

Please do note, that we do understand the overall sentiment and if the thread stops being useful as a source to track constructive feedback, we will need to close it for further replies.

 

All the best!

Comments
Severinsen95

In my country this might actually be illegal, considering the fact that it's basically false advertising to promote a product as "Ad free" when it's actually not, EVEN if the ads are integrated by the podcaster themselves, because Spotify is still selling me the product.

LD45

This is insane, what am I paying for premium for? This is a tasteless and shameless grift. We pay Spotify, they in turn pay content creators and allow us to listen as free. Spotify then decides to quietly change the deal and forcefully advertise to us after poaching all their biggest podcasts to become “exclusive”. It’s so obvious what the plan was it’s disgusting and not subtle. Anyone know any better streaming services?

stewey

Hey Severinsen, there may well be some dodgy legal ground overstepping going on but I’d be amazed is anyone is willing to invest the time and money into challenging that. On Spotify for the US it is worded “Play millions of songs ad-free, on-demand, and offline.” and for the UK its worded “Premium sounds amazing. Enjoy ad-free music on all your devices.*” along with the old terms and conditions that no doubt covers any sort of challenge you can think of. So they are clearly distinguishing the premium account as a songs/music only membership in order to leave the new booming podcast market wide open for new revenue avenues. To me its just sad because they may have decided that its different products but all I see is them annoying their loyal customer base, putting off the new coming of age customer base and leaving the doors wide open for another company to offer what their customers actually want. Ultimately that will happen just as it did with Spotify in the first place.

Severinsen95

Who knows how many times I've read that people just want a different alternative.

I'm ready to jump at any moment! As long as it has the same features, plus the things they stupidly removed/never implemented minus all the**bleep**, I just need the ability to port my playlists over and I'm jumping ship as fast as possible.

 

Spotify is too complacent.

It'll be their downfall.

00mp

Yes please, remove ads. I understand a free model having ads, but when I pay for a service I don't want that service interrupted by ads. Even if the ads are high quality, it's detrimental to the experience of listening to the podcast - enough so that I sometimes choose to not listen at all - which isn't good for anybody.

Japbag

I'm not a new user of Spotify premium but I'm new to Spotify podcast because of JRE experience.

 

I've alrealdy had a hard time with Spotify censorship policy on some podcast.  But now I just discovered that this isn't even ad free.  And the Ads are added BY Spotify since they changes according to your current location.

Users are in a long term relationship with a musical streaming compagny because of all emotions linked with music and  the difficulty to change of streaming service. (too many playlist built for years)

 Spotify shouldn't lie and treat their customers like if they anyway wouldn't leave because there are stuck with them.

It looked to me like a nice company . 

I feel more like censorship and deception are the rules.

 

BigDoggeTom

I don't understand this suggestion at all. The adverts in content is paid for by advertisers to podcast creators. I'm not sure how much money people get from Spotify when people listen to their podcasts, but there's no way it's as much as the money an advertiser would pay.

 

I appreciate the idea, but the only way it'd work is if podcasters, advertisers, and Spotify all agreed to it.

Peevedbeaver

When are they going to disable ads in podcast for premium users? Not gonna pay much longer if this continues. Anyone else? 

mlane0511

Agreed. We have been premium members for years now and hearing ads within podcasts shouldn't be allowed considering we pay to NOT have ads. Please remove this Spotify for Premium members!

phucle

I have to create an community account because of the annoyance of the ads in podcast.

 

If other platform can figure out non-ads with Premium, why can't Spotify?