Not the end of the world, but I have to register displeasure at the ad, being a (long time) paying listener. Please consider putting an ad free file on members feed, thanks.
It's a limited (6-episode), experimental run, for regular episodes only, and we're looking into the tech possibilities (or lack thereof) to excise it from some paying subscribers' audio.
Sometimes you can only truly discover by doing (see for example our lone Second Sunday on YouTube, which taught us how to do YouTube livestreams, which we will now be doing in the future, and not for Second Sundays).
We want to continue growing the business, especially given that we have plowed a bunch of money *into* the business over the past 7 months to upgrade the audio, pivot to video, create clips, hyperboost our social media presence, deepen/broaden the guest pool, and produce a lot more content. Very very few podcasts of our size *don't* include ads (though also, and relatedly, very very few don't have merch, though we have finally rectified that one).
Your feedback is an important part of the learning process!
I don’t mind being a paying sub and hearing an ad provided Moynihan reads it in a voice. Doesn’t have to be the same voice every time. If he wants to mix it up and do a Melania forhims ad read one day and a Finklestein victoria’s secret ad the next I won’t complain.
Do what you’ve got to do I guess, certainly can’t gainsay that, but fwiw the pods I pay for usually excise ads and that’s part of the incentive to pay (the other being members only eps).
@Matt Welch make that money! 💪 I’m so impressed by all the updates you’ve made in the last year & am happy to listen through ads if it means the show will have more longevity.
If you can find a product willing to have Moynihan do his Italian or Ficklestein impressionin for the ad. You can play it every 20mins and I will never complain. I’ll defend it even ✊️
Solid episode, it's kinda too bad so much of the response is centered around the ad (but understandable). As a long time paid (NFC!) sub here - I'll just echo that I'm happy to see your success, and appreciate the need to try things and hope this works out well for you. But I'll also contribute my voice to the "the paid feed should be ad-free" crowd too, and second the note that Blocked And Reported does this really well if Jason needs to compare pointers with someone on how to pull it off.
Appreciate the reply on this Matty. You know there are number of A/V production management tools that can streamline some of the processes you’ve outline here. I’ll put a link to some of my favorite, subscription-based tools below. 🤣
No problem with that, it’s just that the paying subs ought to have an ad-free experience. I’d imagine most listeners aren’t paid, so traffic to GroundNews will be roughly similar
No ads for subscribers, please. None. Not even one. Zero. Put your subscription tiers up a few bucks if you think you want/need/deserve more revenue. I guess it’s a thing currently doing the rounds of podcast management teams because a few others are running this experiment. It’s not a trivial point—there is something qualitatively better about listening to a pod ad-free. We subscribe not only to support but also to receive pure non-commercial content. Please, please don’t enshittify. Please.
I will second the request to have the paid feed be ad free but if you continue to have ads as relevant to your audience as this one, please put the promo codes in the show notes so we can get the deals even if we don't hear the ads!
If the ads end up being here to stay, perhaps a compromise? Allow paying members to access a feed that has them all at the end of the podcast.
I have enough FOMO that I'd probably still listen to them, but won't have to try to time my fast forward to skip the ad (that I've heard many times before,) but not get too far into the content, then have to rewind...all while driving home from work wishing I had a way to make the slowpoke in front of me go faster.
I agree with both of you. Fine to get a sponsor but paying members shouldn't be exposed to ads. The Free Press is terrible about this. Blocked and Reported, on the other hand, is perfect; as a Primo, I never see or hear an ad.
Still, that's a good sponsor. I subscribe to Ground News and I'm very pleased with it. Subscribers even have the ability to notify them when they get something wrong and they're fairly quick to correct it.
The Fif' gotta raise some cash to pay for that W painting.
Hard agree. Also it’s the same company that so many others in this universe use. The same exact script. At this point I’m going out of my way to never use it.
Not sure which is worse: Kmele trying to make fetch happen ("double click"), or the advertisements in a podcast I pay for.
But all kidding aside, it's the ads: I have a rule that I will *either* listen to ads *or* pay a subscription fee. Not both. Lose the ads on the paid feed, or lose a subscriber.
One thing that’s been so interesting to me in regards to the MK discourse is seeing her now being positively referenced and retweeted by liberal standard bearers like the pod save America bros. Tribalism (particularly of the anti-Zionist variety) has really made some strange bedfellows, as pointed out in the episode.
Great ep! I almost don’t believe you guys that this is his first time on the show because you have spoken so highly of him, done his podcast, and done live shows from the Cellar, etc.
I am usually an audio-only consumer, but I had to switch over to the video to see the Jesse impression. 😂 I could just tell it would be great and it was.
Not the end of the world, but I have to register displeasure at the ad, being a (long time) paying listener. Please consider putting an ad free file on members feed, thanks.
It's a limited (6-episode), experimental run, for regular episodes only, and we're looking into the tech possibilities (or lack thereof) to excise it from some paying subscribers' audio.
Sometimes you can only truly discover by doing (see for example our lone Second Sunday on YouTube, which taught us how to do YouTube livestreams, which we will now be doing in the future, and not for Second Sundays).
We want to continue growing the business, especially given that we have plowed a bunch of money *into* the business over the past 7 months to upgrade the audio, pivot to video, create clips, hyperboost our social media presence, deepen/broaden the guest pool, and produce a lot more content. Very very few podcasts of our size *don't* include ads (though also, and relatedly, very very few don't have merch, though we have finally rectified that one).
Your feedback is an important part of the learning process!
I don’t mind being a paying sub and hearing an ad provided Moynihan reads it in a voice. Doesn’t have to be the same voice every time. If he wants to mix it up and do a Melania forhims ad read one day and a Finklestein victoria’s secret ad the next I won’t complain.
Do what you’ve got to do I guess, certainly can’t gainsay that, but fwiw the pods I pay for usually excise ads and that’s part of the incentive to pay (the other being members only eps).
@Matt Welch make that money! 💪 I’m so impressed by all the updates you’ve made in the last year & am happy to listen through ads if it means the show will have more longevity.
100% agreement
If you can find a product willing to have Moynihan do his Italian or Ficklestein impressionin for the ad. You can play it every 20mins and I will never complain. I’ll defend it even ✊️
Well said, that’s fair. You gotta run experiments to see what works.
Dynamic ad insertion to the rescue. Conan podcast is the place to go for tips 😀
I’ll only compromise if you get Moynihan to do read for that rando pouch underwear in a range of voices.
Solid episode, it's kinda too bad so much of the response is centered around the ad (but understandable). As a long time paid (NFC!) sub here - I'll just echo that I'm happy to see your success, and appreciate the need to try things and hope this works out well for you. But I'll also contribute my voice to the "the paid feed should be ad-free" crowd too, and second the note that Blocked And Reported does this really well if Jason needs to compare pointers with someone on how to pull it off.
Appreciate the reply on this Matty. You know there are number of A/V production management tools that can streamline some of the processes you’ve outline here. I’ll put a link to some of my favorite, subscription-based tools below. 🤣
I just don’t like the word hyperboost, the rest I can live with.
No problem with that, it’s just that the paying subs ought to have an ad-free experience. I’d imagine most listeners aren’t paid, so traffic to GroundNews will be roughly similar
No ads for subscribers, please. None. Not even one. Zero. Put your subscription tiers up a few bucks if you think you want/need/deserve more revenue. I guess it’s a thing currently doing the rounds of podcast management teams because a few others are running this experiment. It’s not a trivial point—there is something qualitatively better about listening to a pod ad-free. We subscribe not only to support but also to receive pure non-commercial content. Please, please don’t enshittify. Please.
I will second the request to have the paid feed be ad free but if you continue to have ads as relevant to your audience as this one, please put the promo codes in the show notes so we can get the deals even if we don't hear the ads!
Sorry man but I am SO anti-ad that it’s the kind of thing that would cause me to unsubscribe.
I agree with Dan’s point above. I detest ads and have been a long time paying subscriber to provide yall incentive to stay that way.
Ad-free feed for subscribers is the right balance, inline ad reads are bad! The rationalization of “you can just skip it” is not ok.
Please hold the line and do not enshittify your content. Thank you for reading these comments 👍
If the ads end up being here to stay, perhaps a compromise? Allow paying members to access a feed that has them all at the end of the podcast.
I have enough FOMO that I'd probably still listen to them, but won't have to try to time my fast forward to skip the ad (that I've heard many times before,) but not get too far into the content, then have to rewind...all while driving home from work wishing I had a way to make the slowpoke in front of me go faster.
Some days, it's a lot :-)
+1
Absolutely zero issue with y'all doing an ad after a decade of free content, but members shouldn't hear them 😊
Big +1. Members only feed has gotta mean no ads, guys.
I agree with both of you. Fine to get a sponsor but paying members shouldn't be exposed to ads. The Free Press is terrible about this. Blocked and Reported, on the other hand, is perfect; as a Primo, I never see or hear an ad.
Still, that's a good sponsor. I subscribe to Ground News and I'm very pleased with it. Subscribers even have the ability to notify them when they get something wrong and they're fairly quick to correct it.
The Fif' gotta raise some cash to pay for that W painting.
Yeah but you have to listen to Jesse. I'd sit through Monetary Metals ads on repeat to avoid that.
Hard agree. Also it’s the same company that so many others in this universe use. The same exact script. At this point I’m going out of my way to never use it.
I haven't listened/watched yet... BUT if you are watching on youtube, use the Brave browser and never see ads again.
It's not a Youtube ad, its an ad read by the guys in the middle of the pod, so adblockers don't affect it.
ALSO I would PAY to hear Kmele read a Kitty Poo Club ad.
Hard to believe it's his first time on the pod. Noam is nuanced, meticulous, and painfully honest. So glad to see Noam with the boys on their pod!
Love me some Noam
Less enthused about the ads
Not sure which is worse: Kmele trying to make fetch happen ("double click"), or the advertisements in a podcast I pay for.
But all kidding aside, it's the ads: I have a rule that I will *either* listen to ads *or* pay a subscription fee. Not both. Lose the ads on the paid feed, or lose a subscriber.
Two ad reads in one paid episode?
at least it’s for stuff that feels TFC adjacent and not another ad for online betting, learn a language, or some crappy “free” phone game
Feels like the good ole days. Thanks y'all
One thing that’s been so interesting to me in regards to the MK discourse is seeing her now being positively referenced and retweeted by liberal standard bearers like the pod save America bros. Tribalism (particularly of the anti-Zionist variety) has really made some strange bedfellows, as pointed out in the episode.
Oooooh Noam is gonna get into the MK of it all!
I’m interrupting my listening of this episode right now to swing by and post my eternal appreciation for Michael’s N Finkelstein voice. 🙏
Great ep! I almost don’t believe you guys that this is his first time on the show because you have spoken so highly of him, done his podcast, and done live shows from the Cellar, etc.
I am usually an audio-only consumer, but I had to switch over to the video to see the Jesse impression. 😂 I could just tell it would be great and it was.
I’m really enjoying Matt’s recent love affair with the word “reticent”
He also threw out “vituperation” and I will admit that I had to look it up
Me too. Great word
Another under used classic to consider: vulgar.
“Fetid” is a classic as well
That’s more a Moynihan joint.
Oh, right. I believe he stole it from Hitch
Jack up the membership fees if you must, but do not put ads in subscription feeds. please.
Need you guys to consume more liquor before you do the ad reads. I'd happily listen to your drunken ad reads, even as a paid subscriber.
Long overdue podcast! Noam is one of the most interesting thinkers in your guys' orbit!
oftentimes Michael and Matt are too quick to dismiss or move past Kmele’s points, they should be taken more seriously and i wish he has more airtime
Getting a lot of texts today, fellas. Thanks for the shoutout! Martha and Tony say hi.
Also for the record I don't care about the ad. It's hard out here for podcasters. Secure the bag.