
Pocket Casts acquired by NPR - Gertig
https://www.npr.org/about-npr/607823388/pocket-cast-acquired
======
eigen-vector
I'm so glad to see the team behind Pocket Casts find success. It's one app
I've never been disappointed with and supported right from the beginning.

The paramount quality of a good app is how easily it gets out of the way and
lets you enjoy the content. Pocket Casts has done a spectacular job at that.

~~~
simcop2387
Yea it's been my favorite podcasting app since i found it. So glad it's NPR
and such that acquired it and not a company that's going to fill it with ads
(the main reason i stopped using any other apps).

~~~
vanattab
No ads. Just "messages from underwriters"..

------
crispinb
This strikes me as potentially bad news. PocketCasts is a great little app,
with the characteristic advantages of being produced by a small indy outfit
with no agenda beyond selling a good quality product for cash. I'll keep an
open mind, but it's hard to imagine it maintaining its current user-focus and
content neutrality while under the thumb of content-producers.

[Edit: there's a blog post on the topic from ShiftyJelly:
[https://blog.shiftyjelly.com/](https://blog.shiftyjelly.com/). It's a little
misjudged in tone, maintaining their jokiness which has been enjoyable in
other contexts but feels more like misdirection when a user is hoping for
information on the future. Perhaps mildly reassuring though]

~~~
BookmarkSaver
I mean, it wasn't acquired by a for-profit publishing house or media company
(e.g. a music label, Netflix, Amazon, etc.), it's NPR. They aren't for-profit,
and they generally have pretty solid products (or at least content) in my
experience.

I'm not gonna say that there isn't cause for concern that an organization like
NPR might not be very good at this sort of development or product, but I don't
think naked greed or exploitation needs to be a significant concern. And more
than any content producer I can think of, I'd trust NPR to maintain relative
neutrality towards external content.

~~~
crispinb
As I wrote, I'm keeping an open mind. But in the absence of information more
specific than Russell's rather fluffy & evasive blog post, it's entirely
reasonable to be suspicious. Don't forget that for most humans, NPR isn't just
a non-profit: it's a foreign government agency (and a very corporate-infected
one compared to the best public broadcasters like the BBC or ABC).

@peterjlee's other post here also suggests also that NPR's own current app is
spyware. I have no idea whether or not that's true, but if so, it augurs
badly.

We'll see. I'd be delighted if my suspicions turn out to be entirely wrong.

~~~
jccalhoun
NPR isn't really a government agency. They only get about 20% of their funding
from the government:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding)
And regardless, it was not solely bought by NPR but by a combination of NPR,
WNYC, WBEZ, and This American Life (two independent radio stations and a
program producer).

I also wouldn't call NPR's app spyware by any means unless you call the vast
majority of apps and websites spyware too.

~~~
sverige
> They only get about 20% of their funding from the government

This statement by defenders of NPR always cracks me up. "Only" 20%? Why,
that's "only" $445 million, or a mere "$1.35 per citizen," as the President
and CEO of PBS put it recently. (Per citizen, not per taxpayer.)

So, what percentage of the funding for NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fox comes from
the government? Or, what service does PBS provide that the others don't?

Oh wait, that's right, they're "neutral." That one only makes me laugh harder.

~~~
tallanvor
NPR had $208 million in revenue in 2016. Even if you assume that 100% of funds
from member stations and universities were really from the government, less
than $67 million of their funding came from the government. The actual
estimates are that around 11%, or around $22 million comes from the
government.

I have no clue where you get the idea that NPR has a budget over over 2
billion per year, but you are way off.

~~~
sverige
Oops, the $435 million figure is for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
my mistake. My point is that government should have no role in producing or
broadcasting what purports to be news. Journalism was called "the Fourth
Estate" for a reason, but has lost any credible claim to that title during my
lifetime. Public funding for "news" is always a bad idea, and in the U.S. has
created an interlocking group of companies (CPB, NPR, public tv, et al.) that
are incapable of publishing anything that doesn't align with one party in
particular.

------
mintplant
> Pocket Casts is an enormous opportunity to improve discovery for listeners,
> provide podcast producers with better insights

Translation: we're going to start tracking listeners' behavior.

> And yet despite this remarkable renaissance, the listening experience —
> particularly around discovery — has remained virtually unchanged. Pocket
> Casts will enable us to forge a closer relationship with our listeners

Translation: the podcast ecosystem being built on open, decentralized
standards limits what we can do (see above), so we're going to use the market
position we just acquired to "extend" it with proprietary features.

~~~
asfasgasg
Cynical fatalism plays better when the supposed perpetrator isn't NPR.
Speaking of organizations I would trust with my personal info, it's hard to
think of any better.

~~~
jrwiegand
Pocket Casts never tracked anything. Why is it now okay to start tracking me?
Does NPR do something better than anything other large organization?

~~~
asfasgasg
You do not know that they are going to start tracking you.

~~~
mintplant
What do you think "provide podcast producers with better insights" means?

~~~
asfasgasg
Little difference from the charts they already put up today?

------
robinhood
I think I've tested all the major podcasts app out there, paid for their
subscriptions etc... The one that was clearly over the others has always been
Pocket Casts. I'm also a subscriber of
[https://play.pocketcasts.com](https://play.pocketcasts.com), their web
platform. I just love them. I'm really happy that they've made the money they
deserve (or I hope they did anyway).

That being said, I don't feel confident at all that NPR will now respect my
privacy as much as Pocket Cast, the company. I'm really scared that NPR will
change the app like all those media companies do when they acquire something
good - that is transforming the tool into an ad machine, or at the minimum
something to track users.

Despite the blog post where they announce that nothing will change, I hope
Pocket cast's team will continue their good work and resist the pressure of a
media company.

~~~
newen
The NPR One app does collect statistics such as when do user start and stop
podcasts etc. I remember them mentioning the app in a couple of their podcasts
and how they use that data to improve their podcasts. It's very likely that
they will use Pocket casts for that purpose and it's probably why they bought
Pocketcasts, since so few people use the NPR One app.

~~~
jrwiegand
The notion is valid but users clearly don't want to be tracked. NPR One lost
and they still continue to push it and will likely convert Pocket Casts. I
find the news discouraging at best.

~~~
rtpg
"clearly don't want to be tracked" is probably relative.

To be honest I would totally be cool with letting podcast producers know when
I play a thing and pausing and whatnot. I think it might be useful to them for
improving things and making stuff be better cut.

The counterpoint is that this stuff would probably also be used for ads. But
there's already ads in the podcasts? I'm pretty desensitized to targeted ads
at this point...

------
peterjlee
I've been frustrated with many free podcast apps so I paid for Pocket Casts
and I've been happy since. I think it's a smart move by NPR et al. What they
want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. These data
were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is
really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server.

NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using it. They've
been open about what data they're collecting and I honestly don't mind NPR
knowing about my podcast listening habits.

~~~
obenn
The only caveat to this is their insight into advertisements. Lets say a
podcast runs ads during its first 5 minutes, they can now tell exactly how
many people are listening or skipping those ads and may be incentivized to
start putting ads in the middle of podcasts, or implement some sort of non
skip-able interruption.

~~~
Tracist
Exactly my thoughts. I'm currently using a different podcast app that has a
neat "fast forward 30 seconds" feature that I only ever use to skip ads.

It's annoying enough having to get my phone out of my pocked to press the fast
forward button. If the ads were unskippable, I'd switch apps immediately.

------
scrooched_moose
So is this basically a confirmation they're giving up on NPR One? It hasn't
been updated for 7 months, after about 24 straight monthly updates.

If so, I wonder if they're going to cram livestreaming into Pocket Casts.
That'd be enough for me to switch to something else, I much prefer apps that
do a single thing extremely well.

~~~
pflats
NPR One was toxic for NPR (the national company) in their internal politics.
Smaller local stations fought back against having to promote the app on their
broadcasts out of fear it would drive their local listeners away.

[http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/03/npr-decides-it-wont-
promote...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/03/npr-decides-it-wont-promote-its-
podcasts-or-npr-one-on-air/)

~~~
drb91
They should be afraid. I went podcasts only as quickly as I could because the
local reporting was so low quality.

~~~
icebraining
But we're talking about NPR affiliated stations. Doesn't their news reporting
come from NPR?

~~~
scrooched_moose
A good example is Morning Edition, which cuts back and forth between the
national feed and local reporting.

You'll have 3 minutes of "Korean War Ended", 2 minutes of "Mueller
Investigation", then 5 minutes of "Help Minnesota Public Radio pick the best
lake in the state - listen to why Mike thinks it's the one he grew up on".

The local stuff is so bad I've mostly stopped listening as well. Wish there
was a way to only get the national component.

~~~
vostrocity
The local news is one reason I like to stream the local station on TuneIn
rather than NPR's various apps. Where else do I hear local news from in this
day and age?

------
tripplethrendo
I really hope they don't fuck this up. I use this app every day.

------
torgoguys
"Pocket Casts users will continue to enjoy: A wide variety of podcasts from
hundreds of national and international producers;"

I hope this is just an unintentional underrepresentation of how many podcast
producers are out there (many thousands, not just hundreds) and doesn't mean
they're limiting which podcasts can be listened to in Pocket Casts.

~~~
scrooched_moose
It's possible it's just a count of how many podcasts are included in the
"Discover" section. I don't know what the process for getting added to that
is.

It covers almost all of the "big" podcasts, but there are a handful of local
ones I've had to add manually.

~~~
Y_Y
You can submit podcasts to them to get added[0]. They added my tiny podcast
without any hassle.

[0] [http://www.pocketcasts.com/submit](http://www.pocketcasts.com/submit)

------
gumberculese
The Apple podcast app has gotten continuously worse over the past few years,
I'm excited to see that 3rd parties are picking up the slack, but I'm still
pretty disappointed that Apple has neglected one of the most important aspect
of the phone (for me, anyway).

~~~
MBCook
Try Overcast, I’m a big fan.

I finally gave up on the Apple app years ago after it was unable to sync my
place for the 1200th time.

Never had that issue with Overcast.

~~~
ghshephard
The question with Overcast, is whether it will be able to compete in the open
market with Marco's almost quixotic desire to avoid any form of tracking
whatsoever. He won't even track stop/start/listen actions, and now he's
eliminating tracking pixels
([https://marco.org/2018/04/27/overcast42](https://marco.org/2018/04/27/overcast42))
- all very admirable, but by foregoing all the obvious revenue opportunities,
will he be able to make it up by attracting a large enough audience who will
purchase/subscribe to his app so that he can continue to develop it? Is
privacy an important enough attribute for the podcast listening audience?

~~~
Cenk
He also runs ads in Overcast, so he’s not relying on subscriptions alone.

~~~
foodstances
And a popular podcast that makes him $5500/week in sponsorship revenue (x3 ads
per show but /3 hosts).

------
smpetrey
> Audio veteran Owen Grover will serve as CEO of Pocket Casts. Grover
> previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager at
> iHeartRadio, and before that as Vice President of Programming and Marketing
> at Clear Channel Music & Radio. Pocket Casts will operate as a joint
> venture, with founders Philip Simpson and Russell Ivanovic in leadership
> roles and the existing staff and developer team remaining in place. To
> ensure development aligns with the mission-driven ethos of public radio, the
> board will be comprised of representatives of the public media leaders.

Well, that sucks.

------
pilatesfordogs
I just have to say it: This is one GOD DAMN good app. I've been using it for
years and the only issue I have with it is that I've got to pay again to
download it on my iPhone after switching from Android.

In a world full of free stuff, this is the only piece of paid software that
makes my day better. They deserve this.

------
qzervaas
The comments in here (and the article title) make it sound like it’s just NPR
involved.

Important to note that it’s not NPR per-se, but a group including NPR.

------
lintroller
> Pocket Casts will operate as a joint venture, with founders Philip Simpson
> and Russell Ivanovic in leadership roles and the existing staff and
> developer team remaining in place.

> “We turned them down because the unique thing about this opportunity is the
> mission driven nature of these organizations. They want what’s best for the
> podcasting space, they want to build open systems that everyone can use.”

The initial headline had me worried but I like the tone of the press release
and have no reason to doubt the intentions of Shift Jelly or NPR. I hope they
continue to improve what I feel is the best medium to consume podcasts that
currently exists.

~~~
mort96
"What's best for the podcasting space" is more scary than it sounds tho imo. A
lot of business people would consider web-like analytics "the best for the
podcasting space", even though it would be horrible for podcast listeners.

~~~
ascorbic
Would it though? I'd be happy to podcasters to have aggregated figures on
listens, skips, pauses etc, as long as it's not linked to me. It could improve
podcasts, ads, and probably increase their revenue, which I'm all in favour
of.

~~~
corobo
One of the stats could be "How many ads can we cram in per 30 minutes before
people stop listening"

~~~
lintroller
I agree that it's a potentially miserable reality however if I'm still capable
of skipping forward, and it means that my favorite podcasts and creation
networks are able to sustain themselves, I'm okay with this outcome.

------
dominotw
I use this app every single day. Hope NPR doesn't drive down the 'NPR one'
road. Not too glad about this, tbh.

------
sengork
From the same company that has also created arguably the best and most
accurate weather app for Australia.

~~~
crispinb
Yep - PocketWeather is also great. ShiftyJelly has been a standout in the Aus
indie dev scene

------
Accacin
I was quite happily using the Podcast iOS app until iOS11 where they
completely ruined it. Someone recommended that I buy Pocket Casts and I've
been using it ever since.

One thing that annoys me, when I go to a new Podcast I like to listen from the
beginning, and Pocket Casts marks old episodes as "Played" so it's hard to go
through and listen to them in order as I forget where I've gone to.

Any solution for stopping the app marking these old podcasts as played?

~~~
meej
When you first subscribe, navigate to the podcast and click on the '...' menu.
If there are any episodes currently unplayed, the first menu item will be
"Mark All Played". Go ahead and mark them all played, and then tap '...'
again. The first menu item will now be "Mark All Unplayed".

If you're having issues with Pocket Casts marking old episodes as played when
new ones come out, go into the settings (either for the whole app, or for a
particular podcast) and turn off "Auto Cleanup".

~~~
Accacin
Thanks for that, it's clunky but it works!

------
manigandham
The podcast app I really want:

The perfect syncing and playback (speed + silence) of Overcast, with the fast
(older) web UI of PocketCasts, with the searching abilities of CastBox.

Someone please make this.

~~~
fluxsauce
Can you clarify what features are missing?

I use both the Android and the Web versions of Pocket Casts and it syncs,
trims silence, does speed adjustments, and so forth.

~~~
manigandham
The syncing in pocketcasts is not reliable, especially between web and mobile
apps. Often a played episode on mobile will still register as new on the web,
even days later. Sometimes forcing a sync fixes it, but that is not 100%
either.

Overcast has the syncing perfected, but it has a much worse web UI.
Pocketcasts new web UI is much slower too, with more clicks, popup windows,
and less information density. I use the web interface during work, when I dont
have my phone and just to browse quicker so speed and functionality are
important.

Castbox has a great search interface that can find the words inside the audio
of any episode, which is absolutely great for discovery.

Also there should be a simple subscribe button with 2 options: subscribe from
latest episode, or subscribe from the beginning. Pocketcasts has a very
strange way of changing subscribing to episodes just from sorting them
differently.

~~~
colomon
+1 on subscribe from the beginning! I started listening to the British History
podcast this year, and so far on PocketCasts I haven't found any decent way of
managing listening to 5 year old episodes other than downloading them ten or
so at a time. (So there's always the next one to listen to downloaded to my
phone, rather than remembering episode numbers.)

~~~
DanBC
> I started listening to the British History podcast this year

OT, but if you're interested in British History you might be interested in
This Sceptred Isle. Most of it isn't available on iPlayer, but it should be in
the usual places.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009t23k](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009t23k)

There are four episodes of this available:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qh19l/episodes/player](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qh19l/episodes/player)

------
amasad
How does M&As work for non-profit? Like, obviously from this, a non-profit can
acquire a for-profit but can a for-profit acquire a non-profit?

~~~
matthewmcg
It's unusual because a non-profit doesn't really have an owner (stockholders).
But it is still a corporation and many states in the U.S. (non-profit and for
profit corporations are created under state law) allow a non-profit
corporation merge with a for-profit entity. The transaction is treated like
the non-profit sold its assets to the for-profit buyer and then wound down by
donating the proceeds to other non-profits.

------
ngold
I look forward to trying something besides the horror of the npr one app. I
don't need a netflix tile for every show. I need relevant information on the
show. Not a mini billboard with no information.

------
DanCarvajal
I sure how they don't cram in a requirement to also be a local station
supporter to use certain features in the app. I think that's a big misstep of
the PBS app.

------
erlend_sh
I love Pocket Casts! Here are my top feature requests (I’m on iOS so some of
these features may exist already on other platforms)

\- Let me search within a podcast (search titles as well as descriptions). I
just found out about Planet Money but it has nearly 1000 episodes. The
internet can help be find highly recommended episodes, but there’s no easy way
to jump to these in the app.

\- please let me set playback speed.

I also have a faint hope that this acquisition would allow Pocket Casts to go
open source.

~~~
corobo
It took me about a year or so before I found this functionality. No idea why
it's not with the rest of the settings but heyho

Play a podcast episode and tap on the "now playing" bar to open up this screen
[http://i.imgsir.com/1OMb.jpg](http://i.imgsir.com/1OMb.jpg)

The settings are hiding here
[http://i.imgsir.com/GZAL.jpg](http://i.imgsir.com/GZAL.jpg)

------
smtpserver
"Thanks to the mission-driven nature of this partnership, and of public media
overall, we'll put the needs of producers and listeners at the heart of
everything we do with Pocket Casts" == We are going to add useless features,
bloat the app and switch to SaaS model.

------
javiayala
My favorite podcast player + my favorite radio/podcast station = Future
Greatness! (I hope)

I just came here to say how much I enjoyed reading the list of changes every
time there is an update. There is always something super funny in there. I
really hope they keep doing that!

------
sid-kap
Is there any chance this will lead to being able to listen to old TAL episodes
via RSS? It's kinda strange that TAL is buying a podcast player company but
they don't want us to listen to their podcasts...

~~~
icebraining
Old episodes are a source of funding (TAL sells those on iTunes and Amazon),
so they don't want you using RSS to fetch them.

But you can use RSS to listen to new episodes, so I wouldn't say they don't
want us to listen to their podcast.

------
devmunchies
I purchased PocketCasts app a couple of years ago but recently switched from
android to iOS and never re-downloaded it. I'm sure I'd have to re-purchase
it, right? or is there a way around that.

~~~
paragraft
No they charge per platform. I've bought it 3 times (Android, iOS, web).

------
Dowwie
The storytelling format podcasts shows have replaced evening television in my
household. I guess we've reverted to the time of old fashioned night time
radio shows.

Good old fashioned entertainment in 2018.

------
thecybernerd
I hope they stick to their roots and keep the ridiculous change logs!

------
asdz
Pocket Casts representative will say:"Now we going for new subscription model
- every month only $3.99 and you can listen to unlimited podcast with CD
quality!!!"

------
tadah
Then it will probably be made free for iOS soon (as data collection will
probably be their model).

Time for me to start looking for another podcasting app...

------
ghostbrainalpha
I love NPR, I love Pocket Casts.

But it feels weird to me knowing that I donated money to NPR, and that money
might be used to purchase a private company.

~~~
eddieroger
They use donated money to pay people to write NPR One. If you think of this as
an acquihire, is it any different?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
You are right and technically it is not.

I just feel like when they are doing the on air campaigns the plea's feel like
they are desperate. Without your support this content wouldn't exist.

I just don't really expect them to have the budget to make that content, and
ALSO make sure I can enjoy it in an application that is better than Apple's
default podcast app. Or Stitcher on the web.

I enjoy the app, and I am glad they are making sure its available. But they
next time I hear that they desperately need my money to continue... I'm going
to think... "Ya, do you really?".

~~~
eddieroger
For what it’s worth, I’m with you on donations. But consider that not all NPR
affiliates need money in the same way, and in the same way as NPR itself. My
local affiliate definitely does need the money, for example, so I donate to
them. WBEZ and WNYC are in much more affluent areas with different members.
Likewise, those stations generate content that member stations pay for -
again, mine doesn’t. There are lots of factors at play with how public radio
is funded, and I wasn’t terribly surprised that either of two stations had
sufficient funds to use here, not NPR national.

------
paulgb
This is the first time a product I use daily has been acquired that didn't
leave me with a sinking feeling. Congrats to the team!

------
mrbonner
I am so glad my donation to NPR went to good use!

~~~
nickwanninger
From the article: "New York Public Radio's investment in Pocket Casts was made
possible, in part, by Cynthia King Vance and a grant from Carnegie Corporation
of New York."

I don't think it was from donations, but I could be wrong

~~~
gramstrong
You can't donate to NPR (at least, not easily)...

You can argue that donations to local NPR stations helps free up revenue for
NPR the organization, but donations don't directly translate in to anything
that NPR does.

------
emodendroket
Up to this point Pocket Casts has been an excellent app, but I'm not sure how
enthusiastic I am about this news.

------
zsgoldberg
Love Pocketcasts. Though I hope this mean they'll need to make the web app
accessible

~~~
peterjlee
Have you tried [https://play.pocketcasts.com/](https://play.pocketcasts.com/)
?

~~~
extra88
The text fields on the sign-up form [0] are unlabeled, the submit button
("Register") doesn't visually show keyboard focus, and almost nothing has
sufficient color contrast; that doesn't bode well for the actual player's
accessibility. Also, the <form> element has a completely unnecessary
role="form" ARIA attribute which suggests accessibility has crossed someone's
mind but also that it's likely errors of consequence have been or will be
made.

[0]
[https://play.pocketcasts.com/users/sign_up](https://play.pocketcasts.com/users/sign_up)

~~~
fencepost
It's been a couple years and I don't recall if he was associated with NPR,
WBEZ or both, but a meetup I sometimes go to had someone from "there" speaking
about accessibility and giving the impression that it was actually a pretty
serious matter for them.

------
flaque
This is adorable. I like this. Good for Pocket Casts, I'm glad to be a user.

------
OedipusRex
This was my go to podcast app on Android, excited to see how NPR does with it.

~~~
cerberusss
Excited? Prepare for spying and personalized ads. Why else would a media
company buy a podcasting app?

------
brent_noorda
Hope they don’t lose the funny update notes.

------
zaatar
How does Pocket Casts compare with Breaker?

------
borplk
Time to look for alternatives?

Call me a cynic but I have a feeling their bias (and questionable tech
capabilities) will drive it down to the ground.

~~~
muddi900
Hey cynic

------
syntekz
Have been using Pocket Casts for my go-to for past couple of years. Deleting
today.

~~~
neolefty
Why?

------
hitlin37
i use pocket cast everyday.

------
CNJ7654
While I am happy for Russell and the rest of the Shifty Jelly team, this
acquisition does worry me. Historically, NPR hasn't been the most unbiased
source of information, and allowing them direct access to who can and cannot
be seen on the discovery feed could easily kill the diversity of views that
the platform enjoys right now.

------
izacus
And now they'll "adjust business strategy" and make it a bloated Ad ridden
pile of crap most likely. These aquisitions never end well.

~~~
disillusioned
Are you... not familiar with NPR? It's a non-profit public radio entity. It's
some of the least-ad-ridden content available on the planet and a tremendous
resource.

~~~
rhacker
This is what I was thinking - I was trying to stretch my imagination to see
how NPR would do this and couldn't.

