
Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts - albertzeyer
https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio
======
sambe
There's something deeply satisfying about the idea that the annoying tone and
shoutiness (and volume increase) of most ads could be used against them for
filtering.

~~~
smhost
at the same time, i don't know how comfortable i feel about incentivizing ad
distribution companies to become more stealthy.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Take a closer look at that feeling. If you're not comfortable with what
they're trying to do, but also not comfortable with trying to mitigate it, as
it'll only incentivize them to do worse - then how comfortable are you with
them existing?

The problem is ad distribution companies here and now. The problem won't be
gone until they're gone.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their
attention, via ads, but not with money.

Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast,
sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a
viable business.

~~~
willis936
In fairness, $1 for a podcast episode is egregious. Almost no one would pay
that. Piracy has gone down a lot in the past 15 years because content owners
made reasonable decisions.

~~~
AlexandrB
It's _really_ not egregious. Just like $1/song is not egregious. $1/podcast
episode (often 60 minutes or more) is some of the best time/$ value among
a-la-carte entertainment products.

~~~
h4waii
A song, ostensibly has a high level of repeatability.

How often does one re-listen to a podcast within, say, 6 to 12 months? Maybe a
year after, if it had a real impact?

~~~
mbrock
People routinely pay $3 for a single cup of drip coffee or $6 for a shot of
liquor

~~~
TeMPOraL
Coffee and liquor are made of matter, not information, and thus cannot be
infinitely copied for near-zero energy expenditure. This is what gives them a
practical price floor.

~~~
lotsofpulp
This is all speculation and without knowing concrete numbers, one can't make
any definitive statements about why coffee costs $x and a podcast costs $y.
I'm sure performing quality research costs many man hours, traveling,
opportunity costs for stories that don't pan out, legal costs, etc.

At the end of the day, however, all you need is the fact that there are no
successful paid podcasts, and the most successful ones use advertising.
There's nothing stopping anyone from creating one, and it's not a novel idea.
Same with newspapers. The very fact that one doesn't exist, when the
alternative (paid version without advertising) is a known idea and easily
executable, must mean that there is a problem with the business model itself.

Perhaps the problem is that it can't compete in the same environment with
media that uses advertising. Perhaps a sufficient number of people simply
aren't willing to pay a sufficient price for them to exist without
advertising.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This is all speculation and without knowing concrete numbers, one can 't
> make any definitive statements about why coffee costs $x and a podcast costs
> $y._

There are economic principles, though. In competitive markets, price is
roughly what the market will bear. Physical goods have a price floor, because
you can't sustainably sell such goods for below manufacturing costs. Digital
goods scale for free, which removes any realistic price ceiling - that's why
piracy exists, and that's why there's a market pressure to make the price
close to $0.

> _Perhaps the problem is that it can 't compete in the same environment with
> media that uses advertising._

This is precisely _the_ problem, in my opinion. Moreover, there's no actual
market pressure - only creator's own ethics - to offer ad-free, paid version.
With the current market landscape, if you're offering a paid product, you can
only gain by adding advertising to it.

~~~
ryandrake
What I always wonder is: what will happen when Star Trek style replicators are
invented, and physical goods can also be copied and printed out infinitely
many times at practically zero cost? Will that coffee’s price drop to $0.01?
If I replicate that coffee, will I be an illegal coffee pirate? Will the
government make replicators illegal?

------
dest
Hello, author of Adblock Radio here. Thanks for posting this. I can answer
questions if you have any.

You can read more on the context of this project in this article:
[https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-
audio...](https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio-ad-
block-radio-podcast/)

~~~
amrrs
I know we don't want to see / hear ads. But at the same time, these ads on the
podcast are making livelihoods/income for those content creators and If we
strip that off of them, saying I don't like ads but hey I do like your
content. Where do you think we can have the line?

~~~
dest
My dream would be that people that are fine with ads should have them, while
people against should be able to subscribe to the content. Like Spotify
actually, but radio does not offer that.

~~~
tudelo
Is this sustainable?

~~~
bootlooped
Sam Harris' podcast runs entirely on donations, so I think that model is at
least viable for certain audience demographics.

~~~
tudelo
I agree, it definitely is sustainable for certain types of content. However,
even NPR has donation campaigns where they are running ads for themselves and
they also run ads for other companies that support them. I guess if they were
forced they could change this habit.

------
diffeomorphism
Neat software, but I think this is less defensible than other ad blockers.

With web ad blockers you protect against tracking, privacy violations and
potentially malware and thus don't see "unacceptable ads". In contrast this
seems to be about blocking ads just for the sake of blocking ads.

~~~
fiblye
I block ads because I don't want to be conditioned to buy things I don't need
or legitimately want. I don't want the mega rich to gradually chip away at my
mind day by day, hour by hour in order to make themselves another fat pile of
cash. If a site shows me some sad puppy image about me stealing their money by
blocking their brainwashing, I just add their whole site to my filter.

Content on the internet powered by ads is almost entirely content made to
distract people. Cutting it of my life is only doing me good. Until everything
decides to block me, I'll just be blocking ads because I hate them and the
industry behind them.

~~~
josefresco
My clients are small business owners. They run ads. They are not "mega rich"
and are not building a "fat pile of cash". You need to step outside your
bubble, and consider the broader ad landscape.

~~~
mantap
The well has been poisoned. If most ads were politely advertising local
businesses, nobody would object. But the essence of advertising is to seek
attention, and the inevitable result of that is ads that are obnoxious and
discourteous. Even if they are not outright dishonest or manipulative.

Businesses do not communicate between themselves using obnoxious language.
Business letters are stereotypically formal. They reserve the brash language
of advertising for their potential customers, and those subjected to it are
within their rights to point out this hypocrisy.

------
justforfunhere
I have mostly given up on Radio when I am driving my car ( Thanks Bluetooth
and Amazon music). It has gotten worse over the past few years. I live in
Delhi, India, and we have our fair share of Radio channels here.

Over the last ten years, I have noticed a pretty interesting ( disturbing ? )
trend in the Ads that are streamed across all the Radio channels. Back when
the whole Radio scene was just starting up, the ads were few, the RJs used to
talk a lot more ( and made sense ) and songs were played in entirety.

Slowly they have changed to a point where RJs are just meant to be show pieces
who are there to say not more than four-five lines of jokes/sarcasms during a
two hour period.

The Songs are not played in their entirety. They are stripped at both ends.

The Ads have gotten louder, more offensive, aggressive etc.

And now some Radio Channels tend have small sound bites that are played
repeatedly all day, that justify the streaming of Ads. This I really don't
understand.

Edit: Typos

~~~
Nextgrid
I've recently been to Romania and rediscovered radio. I haven't listened in a
decade due to ads, but seems like at least one station there manages to keep a
good balance: [https://www.dancefm.ro/](https://www.dancefm.ro/) \- their ads
are relatively rare and not obnoxious (I guess not understanding the language
helps).

------
waylandsmithers
It's a cool technical achievement, sure. But as a listener of many podcasts I
do not support this at all. I love that podcasters can make a living or at
least a little money while I listen for free.

~~~
FroshKiller
I suppose you've never once fast-forwarded through an ad in a podcast you
listen to.

------
Tepix
I think the podcasts i listen to will not work, the moderators speak the ads
themselves. Luckily it‘s easy to skip ahead 15 seconds at a time. At least ads
in podcasts cannot track me so i don‘t feel i have to block them for that
reason alone.

~~~
Nextgrid
There's a thing called "server side ad injection" (more like cancer injection)
that inserts arbitrary ads directly in the audio stream so the ad is
independent from the original producer. Presumably they do some rudimentary
tracking based on IPs, user-agent and whether your podcast client downloaded
the file past the point where the ad is injected.

~~~
t0mas88
I worked in that industry 12 years ago, and already back then indeed there was
a simple method to link some ID (usually cookie) to the injected content.

The startup I worked at used it for contests, out of 100k downloads of a
podcast, 1 of them would get a different starting or ending segment to give
away something. So it was persistent to your user-login on the podcasting
portal (which was a thing back then :-))

------
BAReF00t
I used to block ads on ShoutCast, 15 years ago.

StreamRipper cut the streams by ID3 tag change and accompanying silence. My
script just played the ripped MP3s, and ignored the ones with an ad-like ID3
title or that were too short to be a song. You could either pre-record and
then skip backward and forward, or listen live and have nothing played back in
the ex-ad gaps.

I even had a remote control with "keep current" and "keep previous" buttons,
to put the songs into my archive.

Until the Content Mafia ruined everything to keep their cocaine flowing. :/ (I
worked in there, and I have enough material, to testify on the cocaine abuse
that dominate[ds] the industry.)

------
DoctorPenguin
Great idea by the way. Of course skipping commercials in any kind of media was
always a thing to do and was not invented for web ads only.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping)

------
Abishek_Muthian
Nice! Wanted to try something similar for a while using SDR to capture FM
radio and start switching radio stations when the radio jockey starts speaking
i.e. automatically switch stations when songs are not playing.

The Radio jockeys here (India) have started promoting ads as part of their
regular content without any disclaimers or mentions that it is a promotion.
e.g. They just say, 'you should put your child in this college for 100%
placement' without mentioning they are being sponsored to say so.

So, just adblocker wont cut; I need (RJ+ad) blocker. I might have a jumpstart
thanks to this project!

~~~
cwkoss
Contact the advertiser's sales department, waste their time, then chew them
out for their shady advertising practices. Tell them that every time you hear
an ad for them without a disclaimer, you will personally tell 10 friends or
strangers that their organization is run by unethical crooks and should be
avoided at all cost.

Since you're in India, I wonder how economical it would be to hire a
telemarketing company to do this for you.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Although it might legally possible for me to take them to court for their
advertising practices, integrity in Indian media is very negligible.

Only few news media, mostly those which had been existing for over hundred
years as news paper, still maintain some integrity after switching to online
media but obviously they are at the verge of bankruptcy as they cannot compete
with limited attention, instant gratification, confirmation bias fuelling
media houses.

~~~
cwkoss
A robodialer with a message complaining about their advertising practices
could probably lock up their sales line for a couple days for the same cost as
a few meals. Humans would likely be more persuasive though.

------
tinus_hn
Be sure to complain when there’s no more free radio targeting your taste!

------
buboard
We also need to start seeing advertising as a way for
publishers/performers/makers to cut a slice of benefit from corporate profits.
If we remove advertising everywhere, corporates are just going to seek non-
media ways to market , and the whole mediascape will lose.

~~~
throwawawathrow
As far as I remember there was an Internet without ads. I don't think we need
literal garbage stimuli for media to thrive.

~~~
buboard
When?

~~~
Intermernet
Not that long ago. When I was in university in 1996 there were almost no ads.
When I left university in 1999 there were a lot more. The quality of content
didn't really increase in that time.

Right now there are youtube channels that don't monetize, and have good
content. There are soundcloud profiles, blogs and short stories that have no
ads.

Most of the advertised internet is garbage, but it's also by far the most
popular, due to the ads.

Advertising skews people's views of worthiness, and makes a mockery of honest
recommendations. That's literally what it was invented to do!

~~~
buboard
That content is still there, with no ads. You can limit yourself to academic
institution websites if you want.

~~~
brewdad
Funny enough. Every time I visit my favored academic institution's athletics
department website, I get asked to turn off my ad blocker.

------
neilobremski
Inevitably the goal of a project like this is going to start the fiery debate
around artist compensation, free content, and advertising in general. BUT this
is a great way to really see (or rather hear) ML work.

It reminds me a little of some TiVo competitor back-in-the-day where you could
hit a "skip commercials" button and it would try to get back to the show by
some visual or audible change/gap. Since then, somehow we've lost interest in
being able to skip commercials but I still remember fast-forwarding on my VCR
and how it hurt that DVDs prevented even that.

This is solid progress on one side of the fence because you know the other
side is working on new things too.

------
_bxg1
This is not a good thing.

Ad-blockers on the internet are justified because of invasive tracking. Radio
and podcasts have no such thing, and ads are are central to their
sustainability.

If you want to push the world to improve, you can't just rage blindly, you
have to identify and move towards a solution that's sustainable for everyone.
In the case of ad-supported businesses and services, this means non-tracking,
non-intrusive advertisement (combined with subscription models, but that
doesn't work for everything).

If you want to push back against tracking in ads, you have to _support_ non-
tracking ads. Otherwise there's no incentive for anything to change.

~~~
chmln
> If you want to push back against tracking in ads, you have to support non-
> tracking ads.

Why? I don't want any ads whatsoever.

Maybe it's harsh but if they can't survive without ads then let them go? Many
good podcasts already charge money.

~~~
_bxg1
Well for one thing, it would be literally impossible to establish a
subscription model for radio stations. For another thing, online news sources
have been trying to make subscriptions work for _years_ and nobody's figured
out how to do it yet.

But going beyond that, who are you to declare that entire mediums' worth of
content is invalid simply because of the lack of available mechanisms for
collecting the revenue they need to sustain themselves? What a gross
oversimplification.

If you want behavior to change, you have to provide a valid alternative. You
can only say "I won't put up with X" if there's a viable Y to replace it with.
Otherwise it's just "I won't put up with you". In which case, when it comes to
businesses, the other party will either get even more aggressive with their
tactics, or just die altogether.

~~~
shadofx
>just die altogether

Sounds good. I preferred when websites existed as a result of a person's
individual passion on a particular topic, not the network of fake news
clickbait vying for attention that we have now.

~~~
_bxg1
So you'd like online journalism to just die off because they can't figure out
how to get money from the people who benefit from their work?

------
motdiem
previous conversation here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18855029](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18855029)

------
Yuval_Halevi
Usually, I don't like when projects describe themselves using large brands as
comparison.

But this one is great

'Machine learning meets Shazam.'

~~~
heavenlyblue
This is like saying "SERP meets Google".

~~~
dest
Actually Shazam is tech for acoustic fingerprinting, which is quite far away
from machine learning. In your example SERP and Google name almost the same
thing.

------
MadMatt13
Ok This is incredible. Can we make PRs or something to propose new radio
streams? I will definitely use it a lot.

~~~
dest
Head to [https://github.com/adblockradio/available-
models](https://github.com/adblockradio/available-models)

~~~
MadMatt13
Thanks I didn't notice. I love the initiative, will try to become maintainer
of my favourite radio.

------
jplayer01
I'm totally okay with ads in my podcasts if they're helping fund one of my
favorite activities without profiling and tracking me as an individual. I
don't want even more podcasts to go to Patron route - I can't afford it. I
seriously hope this doesn't become popular.

------
jordanpg
Right now, there's teams of people at companies like Spotify and Stitcher,
frantic in front of whiteboards, trying to plan a future for podcasts wherein
it will be harder/impossible to skip the ads.

First, they have to control the distribution. Then, they have to build the
tech, which will obviously involve some kind of DRM.

To say that I hope they fail is an understatement.

But I know they'll try because in the internet economy, companies simply must
fight, kick, and scratch for every last fraction of penny of advertising
revenue.

I hope that they are unable to wrest sufficient control over the distribution
channels to force this ugly future upon us. Indie podcasts will be safe, but
the well-produced, mainstream podcasts will go the way of cable TV and it will
be gross. Ads ruin everything.

~~~
harel
A lack of balance is why we can't have nice things. There has to be a middle
ground where publishers make money to keep publishing and consumers of those
publishing keep consuming the content without being annoyed to the point of
wanting to abolish all ads.

The result of extremism here is that it wouldn't be viable financially to
produce content. Paid subscription models don't seem to work leaving
advertising the only revenue stream publishers have.

I'm saying all this from a content consumer point of view, not a publishing
one.

~~~
throwawawathrow
'What about my business model' is not a valid argument. You are not in fact
entitled to one. Personally I'd rather see 95% less 'content' on the Internet
if it meant it were ad free. I'd rather have no Facebook than one that serves
you personalized ads. I'd rather have no online news media than news websites
that serve ads. I'd rather have no television programs than watch programs
with commercials. 'Content creators' often overestimate how much people care
about their 'content' and they think we couldn't do without them. Well, most
of us can. And most of us hate ads.

I'm sure, in an ad-free world, that content creators who really care would
find a way to make it work. Maybe there'd be less content this way, but so be
it. Quality isn't quantity.

~~~
harel
You do, and that's fine for you. But I rather have a reasonable amount of ads
to support content, than have no content at all. I do use Facebook as a means
to communicate with a lot of people and catch up with friends and family. I
consume content form sites that do have ads. I agree the situation is not
balanced at the moment, but cutting out 95% of the internet is not a solution.
There has to be a balanced middle ground.

~~~
throwawawathrow
You're conflating 'no content at all' and 'cutting 95% of the Internet'.
Honestly there's so much stuff out there that you wouldn't even notice even if
99.9% of the Internet content were removed overnight. There are always people
somewhere willing to create content without serving you ads. This much
content, however little (in proportion to the rest) should be enough to
satiate anyone's needs. Who needs the rest.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Pretty good odds that the content you care about is in that 99.9%, so people
would certainly notice except for those with such broad/pop tastes that they
are easily satisfied with anything, which seems to be the only people you're
talking about.

------
snakeOyl
In the same way that the mp3 changed the music industry, bittorrent changed
how Hollywood made movies adblockers are going to reshape how the internet
works.

Because adblockers drive down the value of ads so substantially companies will
give up on trying to pay their overhead costs by using advertising and instead
switch to a Netflix like subscription model.

The irony with this is that once you’ve had to log in to a site with payment
information your privacy and anonymity are completely erased and you’ve often
given the provider the ability to run background and credit checks on
yourself.

------
sizzle
Please do television next, I'll donate for this functionality even if all it
does is auto-mute my "smart" tv, so I can tune out the mindnumbing
advertising.

~~~
oriettaxx
totally agree!

I Italy very often ads are in higher volume: so annoying, so maybe a filter
will sure add info on how to spot ads

~~~
sizzle
Smart TV's might have some developer accessible APIs, would love to contribute
to an open source smartTV OS, anyone know if this project already exists?

------
donclark
Has anyone applied this to Alexa or Google Home devices? I am interested in
funding DEV for the Google Home device. Anyone interested in talking further?

------
Hitton
Even though I don't really listen to radio or podcasts, this looks great. How
does it handle blocking ads when listening to live radio? Just silence?

------
savingGrace
It keeps being mentioned that podcasters will be hurt by this, but I'm not
sure how that is so?

Are the advertisers going to know that someone didn't hear their ad? Are the
podcasters not going to get paid for still playing the ads? Are the people who
are in love with listening to ads, still not going to get to listen to their
ads? Why is this not a win all the way around?

~~~
dwighttk
Possibly: podcast explosion is being funded by these advertisers who will move
on to a different medium if their ads stop performing.

------
nautilus12
This will result in advertisements working their way deeply into songs
themselves same way podcasters now just talk about how they like products on
their podcasts instead of explicitely advertising (example: Joe Rogan and
Tesla)

------
magic_beans
Podcasts are free.

Let me repeat that: PODCASTS. ARE. FREE.

I hate ads as much as the rest of you, but how the eff does anyone on HN
expect brilliant, creative, and hard-working podcast creators to earn a
living? (there are truly some podcast gems out there).

------
onemoresoop
ADS should be more expensive for advertisers and pushed more sparingly on
users. If that was the case we’d probably tolerate them, there would be no
need for ADBlocking and such.

------
dzonga
for one thing, I don't mind ads in podcasts since they're usually relevant and
use no tracking. Ads like those, are a pass. What I hate are the intrusive ads
on the web & mobile that want to track the color of your underwear: looking at
your fb. & I think the path to a sustainable open web is having a small dose
of non intrusive ads e.g just a static banner for a sponsor on a site. no
tracking or maybe coupon codes.

------
wayneftw
I listen to a radio show every morning and the only ads I tolerate are the
ones spoken live, by the hosts.

If all ads were done like that again, I’d listen to much more advertising.

------
person_of_color
Could this wrok on TV?

~~~
tiborsaas
It would be relatively simple to implement since you have image data as well
besides audio and animations before and after ads remain the same for months.

------
ramshorst
Great to see you pop on the homepage of HN man !

~~~
dest
Thanks Toon ;)

------
exDM69
I absolutely hate advertising on the radio.

But thank goodness in "socialist" Scandinavia I have several ad-free radio
stations to choose from. We've got a tax-funded national broadcaster (used to
be a fee on radio ownership, then TV ownership before, but now it's tax
funded) and some volunteer-run organizations that have their own radio
station. Our national broadcaster also has a world feed from other national
broadcasters (in their own language), the BBC World feed for example.

Not only do they provide ad-free content, but the broadcast is usually more
interesting than the commercial stations. Where the commercial channels have a
very short playlist that repeats over and over again (something to do with
licensing deals from the record producers), the non-commercial channels have
radio show hosts/DJs who can choose what they play. Some of the programs are
rather specialized, like a show that plays only Cuban music and another one
that plays Estonian music.

In addition to ad-free radio and TV broadcasts, they also have a news website
without ads.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I'll gladly pay some taxes for this service.
The ad-free radio and TV is only a bonus, what I really want to pay for is the
independent news outlet.

~~~
draugadrotten
> But thank goodness in "socialist" Scandinavia I have several ad-free radio
> stations to choose from.

It is naive to say that they are "ad-free". They are free from classical ads,
but they are politically very left. More than 50 percent(!) of the journalists
employed by Public Radio SR and Public Television SVT are voting for the Green
Left, a party which has only 4% of the national voters. The journalists are
hence very different from the average Sven.

"Över 50 procent av journalisterna på Sveriges Radio och Sveriges Television
sympatiserar med miljöpartiet, kommersiell radio och tv kommer därefter. Minst
andel sympatisörer har miljöpartiet i landsortspress och populärpress."

[https://www.jmg.gu.se/digitalAssets/1369/1369226_journalist-...](https://www.jmg.gu.se/digitalAssets/1369/1369226_journalist-2011-journalistboken-
kap-13.pdf)

The bias is very noticeable when it comes to coverage of topics like Greta,
Trump, Macron, Pride, etc.

Please also note that SVT Public television is broadcasting sponsored content,
and ads.But they call it sponsored content. Public radio SR is allowed to do
it as well by the same laws.

~~~
exDM69
If there is a political bias here, it's not major and mostly affects non-news
items like columnists and opinion pieces. The news reporting is mostly pretty
neutral.

In comparison to American commercial news outlets like Fox News, it is very
neutral indeed.

