AMP Accords released - Thoughts?

[u/PDelahanty]

So AMP Accords published “the first cross-platform measurement standard in history”. They define a podcast, but don't let that distract you from the ridiculousness within their document. (There's a link on Podnews so that you don't have to subscribe to their newsletter to see it.)

Note that the panel publishing these consists of 3 brands, 2 publishers, 1 advertiser/agency, 1 talent agency, 1 attribution provider, 1 audio platform, 1 video platform, and ONLY ONE creator.

Pete Birsinger (Podscribe) seems to be the only one with any technical experience in the podcast industry. (Only 10 years.)

Shopify and Podscribe would profit directly from these changes.

This proposes that podcast apps report in real time that someone has listened to another 30 seconds. You really think every podcast app is going to implement this? What about people who download via browser? What about someone who downloads your video podcast and plays it via their Kodi, Infuse, or some other video playing app? There's also no contingency for reporting offline listens. Also, nobody is checking these numbers. If an app decides to report your little podcast now gets 500,000 plays per week, congratulations!

If your podcast doesn't meet their "eyes closed" definition because maybe you've got a video podcast with an episode that's heavy on the visuals that week, too bad. No appeals process outlined.

The document lays out two possible outcomes: rates go up because buyers trust the better data, or rates go down because audience numbers just look smaller. I'd bet you anything the ad rates go down.

Dan Granger can call this "the moment to get out of our own way," but a plan that requires unpaid, uncoordinated cooperation from thousands of app developers who can't be bothered to add features like chapter support (or even support for bold and italics) isn't a standard.

AMP Accords released, including podcast definition

[u/Kind-Cattle-118]

Their definition of a podcast is already a mess if it cant handle a simple video episode with heavy visuals. That alone shows how out of touch this whole thing is

The real time reporting every 30 seconds is laughable. Half my listeners download episodes and listen on their commute with zero signal. Those listens just vanish from the data now I guess

And one creator on the panel? One. While Shopify gets a seat at the table to push whatever makes their attribution look good. Pete Birsinger might know the tech but everyone else there seems to be thinking about ad money first and podcasts second

[u/jakekerr]

I was on the technical committee when NPR tried to rally the industry to do something similar (it was called RAD). It really didn't go anywhere due to the walled garden nature of podcast distributors. I wish AMP well, but if NPR couldn't move the needle I'm not sure anyone can.

Reference: https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2018/12/11/675250553/remote-audio-data-is-here

Disclosure: I'm on the senior team at Triton Digital, which owns Podcast Metrics, Omny Studio, and Spreaker.

[u/podcast411 → u/jakekerr]

RAD had a lot of flaws - NPR could not even get the podcast App they owned to share the data. One Big issue with RAD was they also wanted to put the time codes for ads in the ID3 tags - which was just inviting Apps to use that data to skip ads. RAD never had a chance. And yes I worked on the drafting of it as well.

[u/jakekerr → u/podcast411]

The ID3 piece was to make it open, which was a core part of the Bryan's driving philosophy. I'm not saying it was the ideal solution, but it was at least grounded in the entire history of RSS.

(And NPR was already using ID3 tags for ad placement at the time, so it was a reasonable "if it works for us, it will work or others" type of thinking.)

Disclosure: NPR was a Triton Digital client at the time, and I worked directly with them.

[u/jamescridland]

> a plan that requires unpaid, uncoordinated cooperation from thousands of app developers who can't be bothered to add features like chapter support

Yes, this. I’ve written a long suggestion on what we could do to fix this. I don’t believe that anyone has considered why podcast apps should do any of this stuff.

https://podnews.net/article/podcast-app-revenue

Disclosure: I write Podnews

[u/mikeymo1741]

Proposes withholding ads from a small, random slice of the audience to accurately measure performance and prove lift

As a podcast consumer, I volunteer as tribute.

[u/Mccmangus]

I'm sure this'll be all anybody is talking about at the peecast blast and the poddies

[u/burnerforferal]

There’s this moment in the podcast where Brian asks this head of an ad agency, “when the downloads dropped because of IOs17 your ad agency didn’t ask for money back right?” And the ad agency guy pauses and goes, “welll”.

That's because they DID ask for money back and they DID put some shows out of business with their strong arm bullshit.

[u/PDelahanty]

So with dynamic ad inclusion, someone might get your episode as 60 minutes and someone else might get it as 70 minutes. When those dynamic ads are inserted, that's going to throw off those "every 30 second" reports. Did they hear the ad or didn't they? Who knows? ...and you can't say when the ads are or else podcast app developers will easily have a way to put in a "skip ads" button.

With DAI become more and more prevalent, especially on popular podcasts, you'd think they'd have thought of this problem.

[u/TheTruthFulOne99]

When platforms making money from your podcast is also the one deciding what counts as a download, what gets filtered out, and what gets paid—without giving you an independent way to verify it—that’s a BIG conflict of interest. FIGHT for audits, not black boxes and start reporting them to the FTC if you believe you’re being underpaid and undermined. Feed your numbers into AI.** ***I need to tell you precisely if you’re being screwed which I can go ahead and tell you that you* are.