Ability to skip ads in the podcast

Feature request
42

Is all this feasible on a small device like a phone? Sounds like a resource-intensive process.

43

I find a few taps of the skip buttons on speaker / earphones / phone works for me except then I am in the shower or otherwise have my hands occupied. Usually a +60 skip then one or two -20 skips does the job for me.

44

Hello audiophiles,

I have written a bash script to create ad timestamps for a set of audio files by transcribing them and comparing against each other for common text. You can find it here.

Does anybody know of a podcatcher that supports automatic ad skipping from imported timestamps?

45

hello! I created a Python app that can be used to implement SponsorBlock in AntennaPod (or any podcast app that can read from an RSS feed): https://github.com/ericmedina024/podcast-sponsor-block. It works by converting podcast playlists from YouTube into RSS feeds that you can add into AntennaPod. When AntennaPod downloads the podcast, podcast-sponsor-block downloads the audio from YouTube, removes the sponsor segments, and serves it back to AtennaPod. The only catch is that you do need to host it somewhere, it’s not something you can just install on your phone.

46

It’s an elegant solution, however, I know of many podcasts that have the presenters speaking the ad spots, which would not be addressed by this method. A two-pronged approach of SponsorBlock-esq timestamp-based removal for presenters’ spots, and audio detection of dynamic ads could work. But I’d still be concerned about edge cases where chunks of content get accidentally removed.

47

I think a combination of SponsorBlock - to remove presenter sponsor spots - and your “differential ad identification” proposal - to remove dynamically inserted ads is the best of both worlds.

I therefore propose to develop these features, but have them turned off by default, this addresses:

  1. The requirement to download a podcast episode twice is a downside and should be an explicit opt-in.
  2. As discussed above there is an argument to be had that such a feature has a detrimental impact on creators, as such requiring the user to opt-in allows them to make their own ethical judgement.

I have some free time and I’m looking for a project, as such I’d be happy to investigate the feasibility of these features and implement them if they prove viable, however, I note that the relevant issue has the “triage” label, which according to the documentation of this project indicates it should not be developed.

Also, adding to the ongoing discussion, It is my view that the development of this feature should not be prevented due out of concern for creators revenue. This is for several reasons:

  1. The decision whether or not such a feature is to be used should be down to the individual and not restricted by developers. I’d even argue this runs counter to the tenets of FOSS.
  2. AntennaPod has a large user base, for good reason. However, its market share is still small, it is therefore unlikely that the implementation of this feature would have such an impact as to reduce the value of podcast advertisements.
  3. To my knowledge AntennaPod does not disclose user behaviour, it would therefore be impossible for advertisers to know if this feature is used.
  4. Podcast ads don’t work like YouTube, there is no “wait X seconds” before skipping the ads. As such, people already regularly skip ads via fast-forward buttons which every Podcast app implements. All this feature would do is automate this skipping. The people who actually listen to podcast ads aren’t going to go to the trouble of switching apps or even enabling a new feature, the users of this feature would likely be a subset of those that already skip ads.

As a final argument - that has already been stated above - there is to my knowledge no current podcast app on Android that supports ad-skipping, the development of such a feature could be a huge boon for AntennaPod and market this fantastic app to a whole new audience.

48

Good morning
I am a French user.
At the moment, here, advertisers are making a big offensive on podcasts, whether public or private service, I can no longer have a single podcast without advertising. 2 more months ago, it was quite rare to have. But now it’s becoming unbearable, 1 ad per podcast and often very loud, when you listen in the evening before going to bed, it’s unbearable, I find. I’m considering stopping AntennePod because of this. I know it’s not your fault, but with browser listening, ad blockers do the job.

49

Does anyone know of any existing podcast app that does ads skipping? As a code contributor of AntennaPod, I am hesitant to go down this route because it hurts the creators of podcasts. (Even though AP is not one of the huge clients)

50

What would be awesome is if we added an ad skipping feature and users can pay a fee to skip ads, and their fee is distributed among all the podcast creators whose ads are skipped.

51

Not just that, it would also hurt other podcast apps because creators would lock themselves in walled gardens to force users to use their app that doesn’t skip ads

You can already do that with a wide number of podcasts. Many creators offer ad free subscriptions that you can buy and add to AntennaPod. That’s what the username/password boxes on the podcast settings screen are for.

52

True, but this requires knowing in advance what podcast you want to listen to and paying for it. I am suggesting a flat fee (like YouTube Premium) that then gets distributed proportionally to all of the creators that you consumed content from over the period that the fee applies for (usually a monthly subscription). Essentially, this would be the YouTube premium of podcasts. In addition, it would be great to add an on-device machine learning model (or even use user tagged timestamps like Sponsor Block) to skip over sponsor sections. This way we avoid all ads and sponsorships, while paying for creators proportionally to the value that we receive from them.

53

This does not really work in a distributed environment where AntennaPod does not track the listening behavior of every user. Also, it would need contracts with creators, etc. Something like this is completely out of scope for an open-source app

54

I don’t understand your comments:
AntennaPod is in the minority on the market and it does not have telemetry, therefore:

  • Advertisers don’t know that their ad has been not listened
  • the creators are therefore still paid
    = everyone is happy
    so I don’t see why we’re making so much trouble for so little.

Conversely, if you listen on a browser, often there is telemetry and advertisers know whether or not you watched their ads.

So using AntennaPod with an ad blocker would be better for creators.

55

You’re right. This would require significant changes. I would welcome them and, if this was implemented, this would likely increase usage of the app.

56

So, this hinges on advertisers not knowing their paid-for content is not being listened. If (as some folks predict) this things becomes a success and advertising industry hears about this; how do you think that the ‘buyers’ will feel and act? Sure, it’s not a direct one on one effect, but at industry level there will be less trust and more scepticism, probably less money. Now, will that help podcasters? Probably not (enough).

Another problem with the proposed model: even if we don’t do official contracts and approach it as donations, we (the main AntennaPod contributors) need to collect, manage and disperse money. One example: just finding out which podcasters would take donations and getting their payment details would already be a pain. No way I am (or I think any of us is) willing to take on the work needed for that.

Just remember that we’re volunteers and that our goal is not the widest adoption, but doing good for podcast listeners and the podcasting space at large. And there’s other areas that we can have a more positive impact.

Now, not to just be a no-sayer: there are other things that we can do. For example:

  • Make donation options of podcasters (as noted in their feeds) more prominent
  • Nudge users to donate to their favourite podcasts
  • Invest time in initiatives that make it easier to donate to creators
  • Implement support for the podcast:value tag (and integrated payments)
58

I’d propose Sponsorblock should be turned on and configured per-creator/feed, and not once through the entire app, this shifts incentives to provide short, concise, non repetative ads for engagement. The most egregious podcasts will get Sponsorblock turned on first, the most subtle turned on last.

Some more ethical considerations:

  • Advertising pays people a rate vastly under minimum wage (in videos it’s 1/10 for very valuable audiences - far less to non-valuable, poor audiences, audio format pays even less than that) - these low wages are enabled by the ubiquity and ease of advertising.
  • The rejection of advertising as an acceptable business model is a spur to create other revenue models.
  • The potential impact to someone who is driving, heard an ad they’ve heard dozens of times, goes to skip it, and doesn’t pay attention to the road or other hazardous situations…

As far as dynamic feeds, those are rather uncommon and shouldn’t interfere with creating a first draft, once that exists, it’s likely contributors who find the project important will come to fix bugs.

59

IMHO it would hurt advertising and podcasts creators.
It’s not the same as youtube where it’s not something out of the box : you have to add an extension to your browser or use a custom app on phone. So globally it would always be a minority of users for YouTube.

For podcasts as you aleady need to use a custom app there will be no effort to allow skipping ads. IMHO it will push more and more creators to walled garden like Spotify. Not because creators want to. Because podcasts platforms would be pushed to force using their app to not allow to skip ads, even manually.

Ignoring that, problem with this feature is that it’s a huge one with a lot of edge cases. Users will complain if it doesn’t work as expected and ask for further adjustments.
It will turn in a lot of frustration or works.
There is also the maintainance once implemented which is a problem as there is mainly only one developer willing to do it… :confused:

All is done on volunteers free time which can make implementation long. To give you an idea on something more basic : bottom navigation has been thought in 2020 and as been implemented recently.
As there is also plenty of other feature requests which one would be better? For instance isn’t it better to improve podcast 2.0 compatibly, allow more easily to sponsor creators, add mutliple queues support and so on? (And it would need someone being ok to work on it)

At last skipping ads is useful if it works perfectly. I don’t think people would be happy if it wrongly skip audio.

All in all if you are an earlier listener ads won’t be marked and so won’t be skipped. Probably even if you are a late one if you’re not listening to big podcasts. Someone have to do the job to mark ads.
If nobody did it, user should and it means being able to in app. But would it really happen or would users simply manually skip. I don’t think it’s comparable to youtube where a lot more people watched the same videos.

60

If AP is widely chosen for privacy reasons (I came from the antithetical gooble podcast app) then one would assume these dynamic insertions aren’t tracked past being downloaded from a server, how would this affect content creators negatively? Couldn’t a sponsorblock actually do more good for content creay than hitting your fast forward on a traditional podcast app?

61

It’s hard to predict the future and how this might go.

I’m fearful of content creators being only available on services like Spotify or Wondry. It may come to that - it does cost money to make and transmit podcasts. Some already are doing this, but there are few.

I’d guess that the count of downloads with inserted ads have some formula to estimate how many listen to the ads within.

62

You’re right, but if it was something in app so 0 efforts was needed then all listeners would use it. If every apps do the same then it’s known that people listening to podcasts have all an app that skip ads.

IMHO it would lead to having advertiser not wanting to insert ads and financing podcasts. Which in turn would make an incentive to either :

  • not allow downloading from specific apps (for instance there is a thread here about a Spanish public publisher blocking download from AntennaPod for no good reasons…)
  • eventually asking/forcing creators to request their listener to not use some apps which skip ads
  • create closed platform allowing them to force you to use their app so ads can’t be turned off

So not being detectable doesn’t mean publishers don’t know how widespread skipping ads is and if it’s worth paying for.
I think it’s different for YouTube where you have to patch an app on Android or use browser extension. As it’s something that basic users won’t do it’s marginal.