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Is there a sponsor block situation for Podcasts? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 10 months ago by akilou@sh.itjust.works to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I'm happy to adopt a new podcast app if it has sponsorblock natively or through a plug-in. Otherwise let me know if there's some other way to make it work. I don't see why it wouldn't work as all of the segments tagged for skipping are crowdsourced which would also work for Podcasts.

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[-] jagoan@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

None that I've found has anything close to SponsorBlock for youtube, in theory it could work, even SponsorBlock has open issue for it.

The problem is, a lot of podcasts are using dynamic ads insertion, which means the ads are added on the fly when user download an episode. Ads length could be different from person to person, and there's a possibility of empty slot too, where the podcast unable to sell the slot. "We'll be back after this short message," and jump straight into the next segment. No ad.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I suppose the solution would be having people tag a soundbite at the beginning and at the end of each ad slot. Then when the app "hears", the beginning soundbite it can just skip forward until it finds the ending one.

[-] Colonel_Panic_@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

I like this idea. It crowdsources the "fingerprint" of the ads themselves. So as more and more people get the same exact ad, and then tag it, it would be easier to skip that one. So it would reduce the same annoying ads from playing in, this Lemmy post is brought to you by BetterHelp talk to real live therapists about your podcast woes now, the middle of what you are focusing on. If it got big it would make advertisers change their format, but that would be good, less of the canned ads and maybe something more organic and less jarring.

[-] Catsrules@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

I have noticed the Dynamic ads are audibly different in many ways. Like higher volume or has music added. I wonder if we could use that to auto detect the ads and skip it?

[-] MrVilliam@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Idk everybody's situation, but I just listen like this and manually skip ads. My car has buttons on the steering wheel for forward and backward (if I skip back into the podcast). My earbuds skip forward and backward with double presses on the right and left earbud respectively. Listening otherwise, it's not that hard for me to grab my phone and skip through a few minutes of ads. Would it be better if it were automatic? Sure. But I'm much more annoyed by YouTube ads popping up every 3-7 minutes.

[-] Catsrules@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

My ads only come on when it is the absolute worst situation to interact with my device.

Holding a basket of laundry???! Oh better play and ad.

Are your hands muddy from cleaning out a gutter? Better play an ad.

You handling raw chicken??? It is ad time!!!

Their are ways to avoid YouTube ads. YouTube is my favorite platform without ads.

[-] Outtatime@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago

Pushing buttons is too hard

[-] adrian783@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

for dai, I suggest using ad blocking DNS like adguard. not perfect but it's easy and painless.

[-] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 1 points 10 months ago

The problem is, a lot of podcasts are using dynamic ads insertion, which means the ads are added on the fly when user download an episode. Ads length could be different from person to person, and there's a possibility of empty slot too, where the podcast unable to sell the slot. "We'll be back after this short message," and jump straight into the next segment. No ad.

Omg that explains why I got an ad in my native language in Adam Conover's podcast

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 10 months ago

Man I hate this new dynamic and insertion bs. For 15 years all the podcasts I listened to had host-read ads. And in most cases, I had enormous trust in the podcaster to choose companies that he was willing to stand behind. I've used products I first heard about on a host-read podcast as before, and never regretted it.

But in the last 12 months I've been getting dynamically inserted ads a lot more. Partly because those older podcasts are using them to supplement income as advertisers are less willing to buy host-read ads than they once were (a lack of data and targeting when buying a podcast ad spot is the biggest factor, but also laziness on the part of marketing managers because host-read ads need to be negotiated and bought individually, rather than making single big buys in automated insertion systems), but mostly because I've started listening to a few newer podcasts that weren't around in the heyday of podcasting.

And it really sucks. More and more it's feeling like the podcasting industry is being enshittified, not even because of the desires of podcasters themselves, but thanks to advertisers hating the idea that podcast ads were more like TV ads than internet banner ads/YouTube preroll video ads, and thanks to big businesses like Spotify coming into the audio content market. (N.B., it's very important to remember that what Spotify does is not podcasting. By definition if it's delivered via a proprietary service rather than the open RSS standard, it is not podcasting.)