Adverts on Podcasts - Premium Family Subscription

[ally_madden]

I have a profile under a Premium Family Subscription. The last few weeks, I am hearing adverts when listening to podcasts. There is no set frequency for them, they just come on. They are usually for shows on Sky TV.

No one else on my subscription listens to podcasts on Spotify, so I am not sure if they are experiencing the same issue.

I have been using my phone and tablet - it has been happening on both. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10+, and my tablet is an old as dirt iPad Mini.

All payments are up to date, so it is not a billing issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks in advance!

[OneByBoo]

Hi there @ally_madden,

thanks for posting !

Can you please visit your account overview at Spotify.com and confirm your presented current subscription is indeed Premium for Family ?

Thanks for your cooperation 

[ally_madden]

Thanks for coming back to me.

Yes, it is a Premium for Family subscription. The billing is up to date as
well.

[OneByBoo]

Hi @ally_madden,

thanks for replying back !

Premium subscription of all sorts does not include ads in them.

However, if you're only hearing or seeing ads while listening to Podcasts is due to the fact a lot of Podcasts have embedded ads. 

Please confirm if it happends only while listening to Podcasts or also when listening to music.

Waiting on your update

[IngaKa]

I experience the same problem when I listen to podcasts with my Family Premium Account.
Like wondery, it is an american podcast in english and 4 ads are played in german in advance and 1 in the middle. Additionally the ads have a different volume setting, much too loud, I almost got a heart attack.

[Peter]

Hey @IngaKa - help's here!

Do you mind providing us with some more info on the ads themselves?

If you could send us a screenshot of how these ads are appearing on your end, that would be really useful.

Also, could you let us know if these ads appear at the same point within the same episode, and if so, is it always the same ones?

Thanks - keep us posted 🙂

[IngaKa]

Hi Peter, @peter

I startet the podcast from the beginning, this time 2 ads were played at the beginning (Honda Civic, Lidl), then the podcast started, but just after a few seconds at 1:46 min another ad started (weight watchers). All ads were german, as I said, the podcast itself is an american podcast in english. "True crime bullsh**: the story of Israel Keyes | 02 Daughters.

Edit: I also started the podcast on the desktop app. Now there was 1 add in advance (Aldi) and at 1:15 another ad (Magenta TV). So it changes every time I start the podcast.

BR Inga

[Peter]

Hey @IngaKa,

Thanks for providing us with all that info.

Bear in mind that, while Spotify doesn’t play ads that interrupt the music listening experience of Premium subscribers, some podcasts may have third-party advertising or sponsorship messages within their episodes.

The reason why you're seeing targeted ads which change with each listen is most likely to do with the recent changes to the way ads work for podcasts on Spotify. You can check out this blog post for more info on this.

Hope that helps clear things up! Any questions, let us know 🙂

[IngaKa]

Hi Peter,

the thing is that I can switch to other podcast apps where I can listen to this particular podcast without any advertising.
So that's what I'll do in the future, but actually it's not what I should do, because I'm paying for not listening to ads.
You should really check your site to see how these podcasts are integrated into your system.

BR Inga

[Peter]

Hey @IngaKa,

Thanks for getting back to us.

Hmm, that's odd! Could you confirm that this only happens with this specific podcast episode, or does it also happen with the rest of the episodes in the series or indeed any other podcast?

In any case, would you mind trying to log in using another account on any of your devices and seeing whether you can reproduce the issue now? This will help us determine whether there's an issue with your account.

Thanks - keep us posted!