F ³: And Now, a Word from our Sponsor

 

Do you listen to any podcasts? Here are some that I’ve been listening to lately:

• Circle Round
• Kelly Corrigan Wonders
• Higher Ground IMO
• Arts Educators Save the World
• Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
• Smologies
• TILF

I’ve found that, the more I am distressed by current events, the more important it is for me to find other ways to offset the ongoing crisis mode in my brain. Podcasts have been a godsend in that regard.

There’s just one thing: the adverts. I have gotten really hung up on the commercials in these things.

When you watch commercial television there may be ads you don’t like. And thank goodness there’s at least a mute button for aggressively loud sales pitches or annoying jingles. But I’ve never had a sense that the people in the show I was watching were responsible for what ads I was seeing or the relative quality of the products being pitched. 

Yes, I know that the revenue from commercials makes the creation of the shows possible. But in my mind they were separate from eachother. Truthfully, they have become more and more intertwined to the point where a brand like Disney* is a streaming service, a television channel, programming you watch, and products you buy all at the same time. 

Not so with podcasts. They are by far more intimate operations. Often the host of the show does the ad pitches as well. I’m left wondering whether the artist chooses the brand and supports the product. I don’t like this one bit. 

In the early days of television late night show hosts like Jack Paar were obliged to do on-air advertising spots. That was before my time, although I remember quite clearly the voice of Marlin Perkins making the weird transitions to the commercial breaks in Wild Kingdom.

Just as the mother penguin feeds her young, so you can protect your family with Mutual of Omaha.

I do find it weird to hear Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson segue from interviews with notables like Spike Lee to testimonials about how back-to-school shopping can be transformed by getting it all from Amazon. 

I’m not a huge fan of Amazon. So, I wonder: how do the cohosts feel about Amazon? Does it matter?

Kelly Corrigan Wonders is sponsored by a combination of products for affluent women that I could never afford such as sheets, blankets, clothing, and jewelry that will “refresh your look,” and natural-sounding health and beauty products whose claims concern me. If I were Kelly Corrigan I would not want to be in the position of enthusiastically shilling for a oral health product that encourages parents to go all-natural and avoid the dangers of fluoride for their children. 

I never thought we would be in this place, but: here we are.  These days where you stand on fluoride is a political statement. It matters. If you are going to read the ads yourself, and you are the reason people are listening in the first place, doesn’t it matter what you are promoting? If you assure listeners that purchasers of a product will have access to support from naturopathic practitioners…what are you telling them?

The podcast Smologies, an offshoot of Ologies for kids, donates a portion of ad revenue from each show to a charity chosen by their guest. That makes the whole ad thing more palatable to me, somehow. I haven’t been listening long enough to know how they handle the advertising piece overall. I won’t comment on that yet.

I know that there have been occasions when television viewers, offended by program content, wrote to sponsors as a way of applying pressure on the show. Do members of the public ever write to the program itself with concern about the nature of their sponsors? 

Still - - If I value and want to benefit from the content, someone will have to pay for it. One way or another. 

What do you think? Does advertising on podcasts feel weird to you, too? 

Let me know. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

*They may think this makes them all the more easy (or unavoidable) to love. In fact, it makes them oh so easy to boycott. Just saying.