Do all podcasts have read along?

[Jaimetlpc]

I am hearing impaired and miss my podcast so much. I heard there is now read along? But only some podcasts have it, not all. And not my favorite 😞 Am I just missing something? I don’t see a read along button at the bottom of the now playing podcast . 

[AdamDamon]

Hi @Jaimetlpc,

Thanks for posting in the Spotify Community, and welcome!

I can confirm that the "read along" feature is unfortunately only available on iOS devices at the moment, and that podcast creators have control over whether or not it will appear for their content; so it does also depend on the content that’s being played whether or not this feature will be present.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and have a good day!

[Jaimetlpc]

I’m on an iPhone? So why doesn’t it work? I only have found one single podcast with read along. Why wouldn’t they want their content accessible to all people, especially those who are hearing impaired? 

[Eni]

Hey there @Jaimetlpc, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

We’re sorry you’ve had difficulty with the app. We aim to make our service accessible to everyone, so we really appreciate your feedback on this. Whilst the majority of podcasts on Spotify offer transcripts for their episodes, there are some we’re unable to display them for at this time. Rest assured we’re working to improve both the availability and quality of episode transcripts across podcasts available on Spotify.

Hope this clears things up. If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you. 

[pinana]

If I understand correctly the content creator can choose to turn off read along. I am interested only in podcasts that have this feature on for language learning. Is it possible to filter the search of podcast with "read along" as a criteria? Or how can I know if this feature is on for a podcast without having to start an episode of each podcast?

[Vasil]

Hey @pinana,

Thanks for the questions!

There's currently no way of filtering only podcasts that have read-alongs. As far as I've seen you need to access each podcast manually and check if they have transcripts.

The good news is that this feature is also available on Android & desktop as well, following up on what @AdamDamon has mentioned about iOS 🙂

If you wish to see your inquiry become a feature within the Spotify app, feel free to submit an idea about it on the forum!
The more votes it gathers - the better its chances for a quicker implementation! Just make sure you get yourself acquainted with the Idea Exchange Guidelines first. 

Hope this clears things up!

[pinana]

Is the auto-generated transcript functionality available for podcast in all languages?

[Vasil]

Hey @pinana,

Thanks for reaching out!

We will continually look for improvements in the services providing the transcripts to improve quality and the feature set. 
I've seen read-along transcripts being available for some podcasts in Spanish, but I can't confirm that this will work for any language, as the feature is still being tested & rolled out. 

With this in mind, your best bet would be to open the podcast in question and to check if it has a transcript 🙂
Hope this helps! We're here for you should there be anything else.