Bug - Podcast has ads when playing on external devices

[Frakur]

Firstly, I'm aware that many podcasts have ads embedded into them by the creators. This isn't what I'm talking about.

I've started listening to a "Spotify Original" podcast called "The Besties". It's only available on Spotify. When I listen through my phone with the iOS app, or through my laptop with the Mac app, I can listen to the latest episode without any adverts. I've got a premium account so that is all as expected.

But when I listen on any connected device - my Sonos speaker, an Echo speaker, the Samsung TV app - the runtime of the podcast changes to be slightly longer, and the episode starts with ads.

This is really annoying, not just because, well, adverts are annoying, but because if I use Spotify Connect to stop listening on my phone and start listening on my speaker halfway through an episode, it'll jump back in the episode a couple of minutes, because e.g. the 30 minute mark of an episode sounds different depending on whether there were ads embedded at the start or not.

So why am I hearing adverts on some devices and not others? Is there a good reason for this or is this a bug? Ideally I'd like to listen to the show on my connected speakers without the ads, given that my account is premium.

[EthanS1]

Hey there @Frakur,

I'd recommend checking out this Spotify Answer that I have written about another form of Advertising that Premium users can experience which are similar to the ads on free however these are not implemented by Spotify like a free ad they can be added in by the Podcast creator (such as this one who creates content only available on Spotify) known as Streaming Ad Insertion. Learn more here.

Any questions, let me know!

[Frakur]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion but I'm pretty sure that's not the issue. If it were, I would be able to hear the ads no matter what device I used, right? Instead I get ad-free on my phone but with ads on Sonos. Also this particular podcast is a Spotify Original - it's commissioned by Spotify, they pay the hosts to make it in order to attract listeners to their podcast platform, so Spotify presumably would make the decision whether or not to add adverts!

I have noticed the last couple of episodes being ad-free when listening through my Sonos so it might be fixed now, but I'll wait and see if that continues, as it has gone away and come back before!