The advertising industry has always had a complicated relationship with the fast-forward button, dating back to the days when VCR owners discovered they could zip past commercials during recorded episodes of "Dallas." Now a new chapter in that long-running tension is being written in podcasting, though early indications suggest it may be more of a footnote than a turning point.
Spotify began testing a feature last week that surfaces a "skip ahead" button for paid subscribers when they encounter ads, promotions and other interruptions in podcasts. The rollout, first reported by Semafor, prompted what industry executives described as a flurry of phone calls between advertisers and podcasters trying to determine how worried they should be.
The answer, for the moment, appears to be: not very.
"Ad skipping is maybe scarier in theory than in practice, and so I don't think this is going to have major material direct impact on the brands that advertise," said Dan Granger, the chief executive of Oxford Advertising, which describes itself as the world's largest podcast advertising agency.
Mr. Granger said he had not seen advertisers pull back spending, with most adopting what he called a "wait-and-see" approach. (The ads are still technically delivered even when skipped, which presumably offers some comfort to the bean-counting set.)
Greg Glenday, the chief executive of Acast, a podcasting platform that has a partnership with Spotify, acknowledged that some podcast creators were unhappy with the new feature. "We will support them completely as they evaluate any recourse," Mr. Glenday said, adding that Acast was working privately with Spotify to discuss whether the rollout could have been handled more collaboratively.
Still, Mr. Glenday noted that his company's internal data showed only about 10 percent of listeners actually skip ads when given the option — a figure that has already been priced into the economics of the medium.
Spotify, for its part, offered the sort of carefully hedged statement that large technology companies deploy when they are not entirely sure what they have on their hands. "We regularly conduct tests at Spotify — some tests become permanent features, while others help inform future product development," a spokesman said.
The highest-value inventory in podcasting remains host-read ads, Mr. Granger noted, which tend to be woven into the fabric of a show in ways that make them harder to skip and, in the view of many advertisers, more effective. If those remain protected while more generic promotional messages get the fast-forward treatment, Madison Avenue may find it can live with that arrangement.
It would not be the first time the industry learned to stop worrying and love the skip button.
Original story published in The Hollywood Reporter: "Spotify's New Ad-Skipping Feature Is Not Scaring Off Podcast Advertisers Yet"