This is all why it would be wonderful to build a system where you have to pay a monthly fee for this feature and then the fee is distributed among the creators you listen to (like all the paid music services, but for podcasts). I understand this is a massive undertaking though.
Many creators offer ad free versions of their podcasts and AntennaPod supports adding them 
I support this message. 
Some of the podcasts I listen to in AntennaPod are ad-free, not because of ad-busting technology but because I support the podcasts and they provide me an ad-free feed. Some podcasts even provide bonus episodes for supporters.
…you’re right, that’d be awesome, but the truth is that this project probably doesn’t currently have the capacity to do that. AntennaPod is a podcast aggregator, allowing you to listen to any feed you have, but making a donation system would be a whole other problem.
While the truth is that this feature could be implemented, I also think that, at least for the podcasts I listen to, the ads are not a huge problem, usually and ad at the beginning which can be avoided with the “skip x first seconds” feature, or one in the middle, that with a tap on the forward button just skips it
Roughly 20 years ago, I took on my first “big” Linux project by installing MythTV the hard way. I used it for years and from the beginning the ad-skipping feature worked nearly perfectly.
Instead of removing ads from a file, it simply flagged timestamps that appeared to be ads, and would then skip those timestamps on playback. This was accomplished with a single-core CPU that by today’s standards was pathetic, and I think this is the best way to remove ads from a podcast, because you can easily go back in the event the flagger removed a legitimate section of the podcast.
Some people are discussing issues related to funding for podcasters. The ads that I hear are unlikely to be influenced by this because there is no way to track where an ad is consumed. For example, Toyota running national ads to contact my local dealership. I speculate that Toyota is paying for a large blob of ads across many platforms and the podcasters just get paid based on downloads.
However, there are further issues I experience with ads that really make me skip a lot of podcasts, and that is ads that are incredibly high volume and inserted in the middle of sentences, usually 3-5 ads in a “break” and often are repeated (3 consecutive of the same ad). It is the future, and podcasters are still terrible at audio, especially when they have guests. So I have to crank my volume to max and then suddenly an ad comes on and I can hear my tiny little Bluetooth speaker blowing itself out. These ads are literally destroying hardware.
Further, I’m listening to a history podcast and get blasted out at max volume dildo ads, exacerbating my hate for ads and more than once I unsubscribe from the podcaster.
I say all that to stress that these podcasters are not employing angels assisting them with their efforts: they are usually working with the worst of the worst, and blocking those ads can force either the advertisement providers or the podcaster to improve the advertising service.
Just my personal opinion, but not having an adblock feature contributes to stagnation in innovation of the production and distribution of podcasts. If Antennapod were to implement a podcasting feature, it could help in playing a critical role in innovation of the entire ecosystem.
An adlbock feature could also be accomplished as a plugin, relieving the core developers from what will likely be a very regularly updated feature, with something akin to filters lists used by uBlock. Lastly, developers of such a plugin could at least consider something similar to a BSD license, which would make it easy to implement across all podcast fetchers.
I just wanted to mention that for me, and I imagine others, I am working with my hands and not near my phone, or have something gooey or wet on my hands and cannot operate the phone, so this feature is effectively unavailable for much of my podcast consumption.
There are some bad examples indeed. Yet, if they had the luxury, knowledge and/or headspace to do differently, they probably would.
At the same time, inserting ads mid-sentence is just dumb IMHO and any respectable podcaster would avoid that at all cost. If they don’t I’d agree it’s probably not worth listening to.
All that to say that this little app called AntennaPod (we have a tiny marketshare) blocking some ads, probably is not gonna change that industry for the good. Innovation is not the result of ad-blocks, rather of better alternatives being offered. If we block ads, it’s only introducing an easy negative argument (whether about AP specifically or open podcast apps in general).
Rather challenging, but we’re open to the idea. We’ve recently opened this issue for it: Allow creating plug-ins · Issue #7917 · AntennaPod/AntennaPod · GitHub
hi, not a developer, was just searching for a possibility to skip ads in podcasts and a website claimed that antennapod had that option. read through this thread and wanted to add my thoughts.
i am fine with adds every once in a while, i don’t mind adreads from the podcasters themselves. but right now i started listening to a audio drama that has so many repeating dynamic ads that it gets annoying to listen. i assume it’s their network that’s at fault here.
maybe an option to automatically go on 2x speed during ads would mitigate some of the issues proposed in this thread.
i am not in a place financially where i can pledge on patreon for all the podcasts i enjoy and i can’t tap fast forward every ten-twenty minutes when listening at work. i also can’t listen to the same four ads multiple times an hour without loosing my mind either tho ..
I use the Android widget or the notification and have the forward set for 30 seconds. Sure, I have to likely unlock my phone, but a tap or two (or in some cases 4) will slice through the commercial.
“back” is set for 10 seconds. If I go forward too fast and hit an extra 30 seconds, 2 backs get me most of the way there.
I am probably in the minority, but I would consider this feature a drawback!
Additionally for context, Dynamic Ad Insertion accounted for something like 84% of podcast ad revenue back in 2024, so it’s definitely no longer a relatively small part of the market.
That being said, eventually someone will probably create this capability with an acceptable degree of success. I just don’t think it’s a good fit for a project like AP or the Open Source community in general.
I think the framing of this whole discussion is backwards.
The argument that “you can’t skip ads because creators need to get paid” assumes that advertising is a neutral or even legitimate way of funding media. It isn’t. Advertising is not just “payment for content”, it’s a system designed to manipulate behavior, manufacture demand, and keep people consuming in ways that are fundamentally at odds with both individual autonomy and any kind of sustainable society.
There’s a difference between paying for something and being turned into a product.
When you pay a subscription, you’re entering a clear transaction: I give you money, you give me content. With advertising, the transaction is hidden. The actual product being sold is your attention, your habits, your preferences, your susceptibility. The content is just bait. That’s why modern advertising doesn’t just inform, it tracks, targets, and optimizes itself to influence you. Podcast ads are increasingly part of that same system, especially with dynamic ad insertion that can change based on your location or profile.
Advertising isn’t just annoying noise, it’s part of how capitalism reproduces itself. It creates artificial needs, pushes overconsumption, and normalizes a constant low-level psychological pressure to buy things you didn’t need five minutes ago. In a finite world, a system that depends on continuously inducing new demand is not just inefficient, it’s destructive.
Advertising doesn’t just sell products, it colonizes your mental space. It’s not about information, it’s about shaping desire. If you let that run unchecked, you end up with what is basically a permanent cognitive environment of persuasion. That’s the “brain rot” people talk about; your thoughts are constantly being nudged by external incentives.
So when people say “you shouldn’t skip ads because creators need money”, they’re smuggling in the assumption that advertising is the default or acceptable way to fund things. It doesn’t have to be. There are already alternatives like Patreon.
If anything, tools that let users skip ads push things in a healthier direction. They create pressure to move away from manipulative funding models and toward explicit ones. That’s a good thing.
And practically speaking, “you can just press skip yourself” isn’t really an answer. If I’m listening while working, cooking, or biking, I don’t want to constantly interact with my device just to avoid being advertised to. The whole point of something like SponsorBlock is to make that friction disappear.
So no, this isn’t about refusing to pay. I’m happy to pay for content I value. What I’m not interested in is normalizing a system where the price of listening is letting companies rent space in my head.
Skipping ads isn’t theft. It’s opting out of a system that shouldn’t be the default in the first place.
Let me try to reframe this in terms of scale.
The podcast ecosystem is extremely large and increasingly platform-driven. YouTube (1B+ monthly podcast users), Spotify and Apple Podcasts account for a significant share of discovery and listening.
At the same time, listener behaviour is multi-platform:
- Only ~26% of listeners use a single app
- Many already switch between platforms depending on context
AntennaPod is one client within that broader system, used by a relatively small and specific subset of listeners (likely more technical and privacy-conscious).
Given that manual ad-skipping already exists, listeners already switch between apps and large creators already distribute across multiple platforms, it seems unlikely that a feature introduced here would, by itself, produce a system-wide effect such as an exodus towards walled gardens.
There are also some relevant data points on user and creator behaviour:
- 88% of listeners say ads are a “fair price to pay”, and 68% don’t mind them (Edison Research, “The Podcast Consumer”, 2025)
- In a 2025 survey of independent creators (Alitu), only 9% reported revenue as their primary motivation
There doesn’t appear to be publicly available data, segmented by creator type, showing how ad-skipping in a single app would affect revenue at the ecosystem scale.
So the decision here seems less like “will this reshape podcasting as a whole,” and more like “what experience do we want to provide for users who have chosen this app?”
There also seems to be a values question in the discussion: “To what extent should the app avoid features that could reduce creator revenue, even indirectly?” That’s a valid discussion – but it’s a different kind of question than system-level impact of a feature.
If the goal is to move this toward a decision (as framed in the GitHub issue), it might help to make the decision criteria explicit.
For example:
- Is the primary concern user experience, or potential downstream impact on creators?
- If ecosystem impact is a concern, what level and type of evidence would be sufficient to determine risk? (Also, which creator segment specifically do we want to protect?)
- Would it be acceptable to the volunteer developers if the feature were present and controlled by users since some users already skip?
Clarifying those criteria would make it easier to evaluate the feature on its actual scope, rather than on broader assumptions about system-level effects.
Thank you to everyone involved in the development and maintenance of AntennaPod – FOSS is where it’s at!
I would be more than happy to implement an automatic as skip feature in my new app AntPod
Feel free to open a issue/PR to brainstorm the technical details, I saw Essentia https://essentia.upf.edu/models.html#essentia-models maybe that’s something to consider.
This is a very interesting debate. There are valid arguments on both sides.
For my part, I believe that advertising is not a good means of funding in absolute terms. So, in the current context, developing a feature on AntennaPod – disabled by default – to skip adverts, combined with messages about podcast funding or by highlighting a link for making donations, would be a good compromise given all the arguments already put forward.
Of course, provided that it is technically feasible (it seems to be) and that there are people keen to develop it.
Many of the podcasts I listen to have an egregious amount of irrelevant ads lasting 90 - 120 secs. I just do the same and set my fast forward to 30 secs and rewind to 10 secs. This allows me to avoid most of it and find the actual start of the content ..