Let's talk about ads. I like to have as few ads as possible on my podcast, heck, I wouldn't have any if that were feasible. Here's the catch with ads, many hosting platforms offer their services for free, if that's the case then you have to have ads (there might be some exceptions that I am unaware of.) That's the case with my platform, Red Circle. I was grandfathered into their free plan, which I'm very happy with by the way, so I am required to have ads. I was once with a platform that I paid for, it was $20 a month, I didn't have to have ads, but it cost me every month. See where I'm going with this? It's a catch 22, you pay every month not to have ads, but you're not making any money on your podcast. You can keep paying the $20 a month and hope that your show gains supporters and sponsors, but that just isn't a reality for a lot of podcasters.
The truth about ads, is that podcasters make very little money with them. That's why in a 20 minute episode people will put 6 or more in each, which as a podcast listener myself, is a turn off. But I understand why it's done. The only ways that people can make decent money in podcasting is to have sponsors and Patreon supporters, or something equivalent to Patreon. The podcasting industry is so huge now, that getting sponsors and supporters is rather difficult. So, it's a quandary, the ad thing.
Oh and another thing about ads, well two more things, is that podcasters make very little off of ads (I already said that, but I'm expounding a bit here.) I'm not one of those who is going to calculate out how much I make off of each ad, (who has time for that?) but I would guess it's around one penny per play. That's a little bit of hyperbole, but it doesn't seem too far off based on my numbers.
Now onto the next thing about ads. Most hosting platforms give podcasters a way to exclude topics for ads that play on their show. For instance, I have excluded anything political, religious, social and a few others. However, I was listening to one of my episodes a week or so ago, (which I try to avoid because all I hear are the clicks, and the way I pronounce some words, it's really torturous) anyway, I heard a political ad on that show and I was not happy about that. So, my point is, is that the type of ads that you really don't want, still sneak in and we podcasters
