3/4ths of top 100 podcasts have ads, but only 1/4th of top 25k podcasts have ads | Hacker News Reader

4th of top 25k podcasts have ads

medium.com

10 pointscmrnh10 comments

I find it cool that they are able to get reasonably accurate data with their automated tool, but the overall conclusion of this data isn't very interesting. Of course more popular podcasts are more likely to have ads - there are way more advertisers vying to reach those larger audiences.

I assume there's also a correlation of the form that more professionally produced (and frequently released) podcasts tend to be more popular and tend to be more likely to need ads to pay for them. (And go away absent being popular and having ads.)

Simple interview or discussion-style podcasts are pretty easy and cheap to produce. They're probably not as popular in general but they're often just some sideline so it's often not even worth it to deal with advertising.

As has been mentioned (and I'm sure will be again) - that advertisers choosing to advertise on popular podcasts isn't surprising.

But got me thinking:

I subscribe to a few excellent podcasts, nobody else hears about. Often they use Patreon and I chip in something trivial, like a dollar a month. Seems more prevalent than say on small youtube channels, but my assumption is that if the podcast is being served from a creator owned RSS, then it's harder for advertiser to know who downloaded it, if they actually did, if they listened to it. The design of 'podcast' (here's my RSS feed of MP3s) was never designed with advertising in mind.

But it's changing. Specialist aggregators like Stitcher, podcasts being added as features (Plex & Spotify) and even some of the indies are using a service that'll insert an advert relevant to when you downloaded and where (although never fits in - and the random spanish one confused me)... but can't help feel it's all becoming a bit of a mess as the big-boys wade in to try and make something commercial out of it - when the listeners were quite happy to use their favourite client (correct answer is Pocket Casts). More than a mess. I pay on Patreon, but I still get the advert. Or I sign up for stitcher to lose adverts on some, but not others. Or use the NPR app, or the BBC app - so they can tell what I listened to etc etc.

Isn't this the sort of problem tech like blockchain could solve? Your favourite player generates a universal ID, then on per-podcast basis you can opt in to write-back whatever listening habits/personal details you feel comfortable with (e.g. what else do I listen to?) "Please tick the box, so I can prove you're listening?" "Please tick the box that proves you're a certain demographic to them?" "Please give me your ID on Patreon, so your client can get the ad-free feed"

I'm meandering now. I think my point was simply that this article reminded me of my annoyance that a clear existing problem seems to be "being fixed wrong"

And why exactly do you need a blockchain for this?

Woops! He mentioned blockchain so now the pile-on from HN anti-blockchainers is coming!

I’m mostly joking but it seems that blockchain is a topic that people on HN know they’ll get upvotes for if they act like it’s the dumbest thing ever. I don’t personally know that this person would require blockchain for any part of their idea, but this is just an observation.

Wouldn't have to be blockchain, of course. What I was wanting would be 'somewhere' all podcast players could write back what you've been doing with them. Of course the "global podcast tracking organization" could spontaneously form and expose a ReST service to correlate the same data. Then undoubtedly would need some funding, so maybe charge advertisers for access. Just liked the lighter weight initial idea of building the ledger and then leaving the advertisers/public to decide what to do with it. Or to look at it another way - open-source "Nielsen-like" data, created solely for consumption of digital media. Although cost of implementation is far lower (don't have to install boxes on TVs, or ask what adverts you saw in the paper) - but still we just seem to have proprietary stuff and a bazillion cookies on every website.

but my assumption is that if the podcast is being served from a creator owned RSS, then it's harder for advertiser to know who downloaded it, if they actually did, if they listened to it. The design of 'podcast' (here's my RSS feed of MP3s) was never designed with advertising in mind.

The RSS feed is self hosted, but most of the time the actually mp3 download is from a third party host like lybsyn where you can at least get an unbiased source of downloads.

Besides, almost all podcast advertising is direct action and there is usually a coupon code you use to signal the advertiser where you came from.

You didn't release any data to verify and this is clearly a product pitch in the form of a Medium post, so I guess my response is "Oh. Okay"

Edit: Transcription[0] seems really poor, but I guess they're just checking for mentions of the advertiser's name and not anything like sentiment or actually matching ad copy (where there would be higher value to advertisers).

0: https://podcast-app.magellan.ai/advertisements/b8f65c87-4c66...

One of my favorite podcasts Matt and Mattingly's Ice Cream Social (aka Heyscoops) has, I think, a fairly unique situation of being entirely funded directly from listeners via Patreon and some merchandise sales.

https://heyscoops.com/

The Best Podcast in the Universe[1] relies completely on listener donations. Given the nature of the show, they could never use corporate ads.

[1] http://www.noagendashow.com/

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