getting ads with premium subscription on podcasts

[#1]

I have a premium subscription & receive DAI when driving listening to podcasts that are unskippable. if i listen to the same podcasts via desktop i get no ads and historically if I did get served an ad it was skippable. These are not embedded ads to the show like many other podcasts, they are DAI ads that have been pre-recorded by the hosts

[Maxim]

Hey there,

Thanks for coming to the Community.

Spotify advertises that a Premium user can listen to music without ad interruptions, which is one of the key benefits of a Premium subscription. However, podcasts for both free and Premium users may include ads, and they can be either host-read endorsements, sponsorships or audio adverts within the podcast track itself.

A special feature is available that can dynamically insert ads within a podcast stream. This can be enabled or disabled by the podcast publishers. The desire here is to provide some added value for those who want to host their podcasts on Spotify.

The teams at Spotify understand that there might be some confusion on the fact that Premium comes with ad free music listening, but doesn't cover podcasts.

Hopefully this explanation provides you with a better understanding of the Premium subscription and the ads that you listened to. Apologies if this was not made sufficiently clear before.

Spotify cares about their users' opinion and they're doing their best to expand on the information sources available to be more transparent 🙂

[avinoorchatha]

Yes, I am same on a premium plan and still seeing ads.

Not happened to me before, like I am using premium from a long time, now, I just played a podcast and there was an advertisement.

If you got solution for this, let me know.

[Abyssal_nmo]

I've noticed a similar issue with my premium family plan. I started listening to an older podcast series, so it's easy to tell the difference between the old podcast ads and the inserted ads. And the first couple of episodes were teasers. They were only a couple of minutes long. But I'd get slammed with two or three ads at the end of every episode and another set before the new episode begins. It was also the same three or four ads over and over again.

[leesonlpn]

I too am getting commercials with my podcasts.  The agent said it's to help the podcast creators with monetary assistence for their podcasts.  I have an issue with this.  It is deceitful.. The who premise of premium I thought was to be ad free.  They shouldn't offer it with strings attached.  Subscribers are Spotify's source of revenue as well, so why do we not get what we signed up for.  I am not impressed. with this shady practice.  I feel I am being duped and nothing I can do about it.  The ol' David and Goliath I guess.

[Ayen13]

I started hearing Ads during podcasts, not adds read by the podcaster, but regular spotify adds, interrupting the show. It never happened before, just started today (March 11th 2024) during podcast: "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard". The Ad is in Portuguese (my account is in Brazil), and the Podcast is in English (USA), so it is not an ad within the podcast show.

[frankyfish42]

While listening to The weekly planet podcast I've started getting localized ads here in Ireland. Three in a row. With no access to Hifi sound, spatial audio and now ads on premium this may be the straw that broke the camels back. I think it's time to look at the competition for the family plan. 

[Malarky112]

I wanted something different from music and I have never tried podcasts. I picked the first one on the list that I recognized, Joe Rogan. 
5 mins in I get an ad that I can’t skip, read by Joe Rogan. It’s a min long so I figure I just deal with it. After that one finished, I get another ad, can’t skip it, and this one is one minute and 20 seconds. So I’ve listened for 5 mins and I’m expected to listen to 2:20 in ads? I changed back to music and will never try another podcast again. 

[pawel_skorupa]

People on the Internet are looking for podcasts app that will provide listening time without ads by not not having any premium membership. Here we pay for premium and we are getting ads in podcasts. This is really bad. Maybe it's time to find some other service where we will pay for premium and we will not have any ads?

[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.

[martijngoos]

I'll add to this

Not sure if this is a subscription or podcast or ad question. Frankly: all help, community, marketing or documentation isn't going into details to this, so here goes nothing.

I'm a premium member (family, not that it should matter) that listens to music and podcasts.

No ads in music, since recently suspicious ads in podcasts. Let me explain suspicious.

I've listened to podcasts on Spotify before, and some have baked in product placement. All good, not complaining.

Since a week or 2, my favorite American podcast is taking intermission breaks, then an ad sound is played and a local (Dutch!) ad is played.

The only thing I could find in Community is 'how to play Podcasts' where it does say '3rd party ads' could be played.

However! This Dutch integration can only happen if Spotify shares my locale, or worse, provides local ads. TO PREMIUM MEMBERS.

Nowhere it explicitly states that Spotify still provides (either directly or directly facilitates) ads to Premium accounts.

Is this a bug or a very ugly side of not sharing all details about paid subscriptions?

[bottleofwine]

I am getting ads on premium as well, and it is NOT a bug. It is a ~feature~! 

This is called "Enshittification", (2023 word of the year)  which is the online industry standard nowadays. Basically, they are making their own services gradually worse to make more money from the paid users. Uber, Meta, Spotify all these big **bleep** companies are making it. 

Want your food to be delivered faster? pay priority delivery. 

Want to listen music AND podcasts ad free? expect a new premium membership 

[#13]

i have a premium account which is supposed to be ad free, yet recently i get ads on 1 particular podcast. Why is this?

[untilthen]

Hello, it is unfortunately not a bug. Spotify has indicated that their Premium "ad-free" plan only extends to their music side of things. Podcasts are not under that umbrella, and therefore you will get ads when you listen to your favourite content creators. That also depends on whether or not the content creators have flicked their monetization ads button to ON. 
To summarize, if you're looking for ad-free podcasts here on Spotify, it's not happening and it won't happen. People have flagged this issue for, from what i can gather, 1-2 years now and Spotify has not done anything about this. It will likely be best if you can switch platforms (maybe YT Premium?). 

Lastly, if you're wondering if there's been any mention about the "ad-free" premium subscription not covering podcasts? Yes, they included a sentence in the end user agreement. One might call it an afterthought after reading it, but let's be real. Their lawyers probably made them include it to avoid lawsuits. 

Hope this helps. 

[Iris261]

I’ve been listening to Los Angeles based podcasts and getting ads for places and events in my home town (not Los Angeles). And I pay for premium. I understand that podcast hosts can add in Spotify generated ads but why must they take up half of the podcast run time? Also why are they local ads and not generic ads that cover large audiences? and why must they interrupt the episode and not just play after the episode or before or during a designated incorporated ad read section? ugh!

[danny9taill]

Tengo un problema con mi suscripción,pago premium para no tener anuncios y cada que quiero escuchar podcast ,me salen de 4 a 5 anuncios por episodio y la verdad eso es muy molesto ,porque entonces para que estoy pagando casi 13 dl al mes si no respetan lo que ofrecen 

Ojalá puedas ayudarme y resolver esto

[td-Whittle]

My husband and I have had a premium family account on Spotify for years, and I have recently been finding some podcasts I thought I would enjoy, but they are riddled with ads (local Australian content, in my case, though the podcasts are mostly American) that have been dropped into the content. I dislike this so much, especially in a service we already pay for, that I will no longer listen to podcasts via Spotify. If I cannot find a paid service without ads on all of their content, then I won't use it. It's put me off Spotify, generally speaking as well, so that I am looking for a different music streaming service.