New ads in GB podcasts

hi all. i know that GB has gone through some changes recently with regards to podcast archiving, new advertisements, and so on. i assume that this is fandom's influence but i suppose there's no use in pointing fingers. i just just wanted to check what sorts of advertisements you've all been hearing. i know that the ads are geolocated and so everyone is hearing different ones, but let me tell you what i am hearing:

1) casino ads. i find these highly distasteful and morally dubious but not so much that i would necessarily cause a fuss about it. i would prefer not to have gambling advertised to me by a podcast i love but so be it.

2) right-wing propaganda ads (lol?). here is the real issue. the government of alberta are running astroturfed anti-trudeau ads that i guess are being determined to be relevant to me as a citizen of ontario. as an ardent lefty, i don't really have much affection for trudeau, but i definitely don't want to hear literal right-wing propaganda ads from the United Conservative Party, a very right-wing provincial party in alberta. for context, this would be equivalent to hearing ads from ron desantis or some MAGA shithead on the giant bombcast every week.

i realize that this is a service that GB gets paid for and that they don't get to choose the ads that everyone is hearing all over the world. but if it is possible to... exercise some sway over which ads get selected, i think that would be nice. maybe i am out to lunch here, but i get the sense that the average GB listener is not really that receptive to right-wing propaganda, and i don't think that the nice people working at GB would be psyched to learn that they were (implicitly) endorsing right-wing propaganda.

are you yanks getting similar ads to these or are you getting more anodyne stuff? what about people in other parts of the world? i know ads are a necessary evil but it would be nice if the ads weren't also additionally evil.

Definitely email support, or even DM @jeffbakalar about this. I know in the past Jeff G had similar issues with some dynamic ads IIRC and he was able to reach out to them and remove those companies from the ad service they were provided with. (I might have imagined that but I think it's something that can be done?)

Either way, just please be sure you contact the crew and don't rely on them seeing this post

Ads for right wing monsters political campaigns had shown up across a ton of podcasts I listen to during the 2022 midterms. I am bracing for those again.

The Fire Escape podcast was one I noticed first because they just injected automated ads into the pod, sometimes mid-word, instead of editing for it or being judicious about what showed up, so I got local ads in the Portland area for things like gun stores, mega churches and anti-vax weirdos. It was jarring and resulted in me no longer listening to that podcast since.

Boy, that's hideous, and also just plain stupid. I get the sense that the vast majority of people who are still consuming GB content are, as you describe yourself, fairly ardent lefties, and not receptive to right-wing propaganda. So those advertisers are wasting their money and doing nothing but pissing off the GB audience. Seems like they'd be way better off selling their insanity elsewhere.

I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe there's a silent large chunk of bombcast listeners that have a right-wing lean... but I doubt it?

@atheistpreacher: I would imagine they have very little idea what GB or its audience is, they just get slipped into automated ad services and thus onto any shows that use things like that.

I've seen em for shows like Behind the Bastards and they get nuked pretty quickly but it's very funny whenever it happens.

yeah i've been getting some real garbo injected advertising. some of it in languages i don't speak (lol) and others just so far off the mark it's comical (asking me if i've found Jesus while vintage Jeff talks about shooting TVs).

the placement of the ads is also pretty egregious- it's just so powerfully dumb. someone will be mid-sentence then my ears will get blasted by compressed jingles. not exactly persuasive marketing.

I think bigsofttitty.png is the only podcast I listen to where there are mid-sentence or -word ads, but I've gotten pretty good at skipping ads in general, so I don't know what kind of stuff the others are selling.

If people can give specific examples of what the ad exactly was and where they heard it, we can go in and delete the ad.

I thought it was just me getting spammed withthe Govt. of Alberta adverts, as its where i live, but getting them in Ontario is mental!!

there are two Alberta Gov ads running at the moment, one astroturfing the Federal Government, and another about Alberta Pension Plans (Canada had CPP canadawide, Albertas basically been trying to Secede from govt. power for a while in Hyper-Conservative circles, and the current person in power is part of the right wing nutters that also helped birth teh Trucker Convoys, so yeah...)

so @dtoast if there's anything with Canadian adverts seeing Govt Alberta, just know they are pretty shitty atm.

And i say this as a premium mamber who just forgets to unsub the ad versions on my podcatcher, thinking "well, any revenue extra is good?"

I do experience the casino ads, but I am lucky to mostly get ads for local businesses. Well, except for the one time all my ads were targeted for Dublin, Ireland while I live in the US, but that was just fun.

@tartyron: I will say Fire Escape has gotten much better with that on their end. Ads are now all inserted at logical times, specifically at the beginning, after Mike says “let’s talk about games,” and either at the end of the games segment or about after an hour of it if the game section is runs long. They do custom ads now which are easier to skip through.

You know, one I've gotten lately on some other podcasts like Remap and Retrograde Amnesia are this odd general goods ads. I mean, an ad just for paper products in general and how they are good for the environment, which you know, sure, paper is better than plastic but lets be real, the companies pushing these ads don't care how often we recycle, they care that we keep buying and they will keep chopping them trees.

I digress. The point is that commercials seem like they are getting weird. Putting the concept of paper consumption on video game podcasts is just weird to me.

@dtoast: thanks for the response! i don't have a specific timestamp at the moment, i just know that it was in a recent bombcast and also in a bunch of beastcasts (specifically 92–94). if i hear it again, i'll hit you up with the specific episode and timestamp. thanks again!