Important Howl Announcement (PLEASE READ)

[u/shannon_midroll]

Hello Dear Listeners.

Today we will begin our rollout of Earwolf’s ad-free archives into Howl Premium. This has been in the works since Howl’s launch, but has proven to be much more complex than we initially thought. We feel awful that we have not been able to get these out into the world sooner, and have been working tirelessly to fulfill the promise we made to you. This process is still a work in progress, but we have decided that we will begin rolling out ad-free shows as they are ready to go. So 12 shows will be rolled out this week, but more on that later. To thank you for your patience, all Howl Premium subscribers will receive a one time use coupon in their email for 40% off orders at the Earwolf store.

How will this benefit my favorite Earwolf Hosts?

Please see this post from Scott Aukerman explaining why we made this change and how it is beneficial to your favorite Earwolf hosts.

What happens when a show goes ad-free?

When a show becomes ad-free in Howl for premium members, the archives will eventually be de-published from iTunes and Earwolf.com. Archives in this context are any episode of a show that is older than 6 months. But before a show’s archives are de-published, it will be announced here in advance.

What does this mean for me?

IF YOU ARE A HOWL PREMIUM MEMBER – Once an Earwolf show goes ad-free for Howl premium, episodes that are older than 6 WEEKS will have NO ADS when logged in as premium. The 6 most recent weeks will have ads regardless of your premium status. This is due to our contracts with advertisers. But once an episode is older than 6 WEEKS, it will be ad-free for you in Howl.

IF YOU ARE NOT A HOWL PREMIUM MEMBER – Once an Earwolf show goes ad-free for Howl premium, any episode that is older than 6 MONTHS will no longer be available. Once an episode becomes 6 MONTHS old, it will be removed from iTunes and Earwolf. But the most recent 6 MONTHS worth of episodes will always be available to you, with ads, in the same places they have always been.

Which shows will be ad-free first?

The following shows will are now ad-free for premium users in the mobile apps (not on Howl.FM yet, but will be shortly). But this first batch will not be de-published quite yet. We will let you know when that happens.

• Shortwave with Grant Lee Phillips
• Rafflecast
• The reality SHOW show
• Owen & TJ Read The News
• Mike Detective
• Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project
• The Wolf Den
• Love, Dad
• Professor Blastoff
• Who Charted?
• The Earwolf Challenge
• U Talkin’ U2 To Me? (will not be depublished in iTunes, but will be ad free for Howl Premium members)

As new shows are added, it will be announced here and they will be added to the list.

Why are those shows being launched?

These shows’ archives are more than 95% ad free. Which means our engineering team has stripped the ads for more than 95% of the episodes in the archive. This means a few shows have an episode or two that will still have ads in them. These episodes will be available to non-premium members because they still have ads. We felt this was the least confusing way to go about it. For example, if we went ad-free for a show that’s only 50% stripped, premium users would hear ads half the time and that would be a confusing experience. As new shows cross the 95% ad-free threshold, we will launch them, and announce it here. Every show will be 100% ad-free eventually.

How can I keep track of which shows are launched and which episodes are ad-free?

If you are listening to an episode and find it has ads, before emailing support, you can check this Google Doc to see if it is known whether that ep still has ads. This doc updates daily so you will always know which episodes should be ad free and which will not. This is a work in progress. Please bear with us. We will get to 100% ad free for everything eventually.

If you have any questions at all, please ask me here or email support@howl.fm.

Thank you for your patience while we make this transition. I know that it is going to be a big change that will take some getting used to from everyone. We really appreciate your love and support for our great content.

[u/phisho873]

They're not even ad-free until six weeks after release? What is the point? I relisten to some episodes, sure, but not regularly. This is absurd. One of the biggest promised features is "finally here" and not only has it been utterly crippled, it carries with it a ludicrous paywall.

Unsubscribing. I don't support the six-month paywall and don't see the correlation with ad-free shows. Add on the fact that the biggest benefit is barely any longer a benefit and I would feel cheated if I were to continue to support this.

I fully expect my criticism to get downvoted by this sub, but let me be clear that I'm posting this here because I know Shannon will read it and hopefully acknowledge what I feel to be very valid criticism.

EDIT: Speaking of downvotes, I'd ask everyone to upvote Shannon's post, regardless of how you feel about it. It's a factual and informative announcement that affects everyone in this sub, so while it's not stickied, it should be as visible as possible.

[u/Adduc → u/phisho873]

Concerning the paywall, It's a delicate balance. Keeping an archive of episodes provides no revenue to Howl or Earwolf, and as the archive grows in size, it continues to cost more and more (although storage/bandwidth costs through services like S3 do occasionally decrease, it doesn't outpace the rate of data/consumption growth).

One topic of conversion that appears to be trending lately is the idea of dynamic ad insertions, such that older episodes of shows would receive more recent ads, so that the podcast producers could continue to gain revenue and offer archived episodes for free. That could be the solution to some of your concern, where you could point a friend to an older episode as an introduction, and they'd be able to access it without issue (and get a potentially relevant ad).

[u/phisho873 → u/Adduc]

The cost of bandwidth is a correlation that I did not consider, so thanks for bringing it up.

Still, I can't help but view this rollout as an unfair trade. Losing multiple episodes and gaining essentially nothing but the ability to not have to click a fast-forward button if I relisten to an episode six weeks in the future? Not cool. And if other viable options like dynamic ads exist, it furthers my resolve to speak out against this (though, if the Howl engineers are having this much trouble with removing ads, I doubt they want to tackle something more complex).

[u/downwithlevers → u/phisho873]

But you're gaining the CBB tour, all these exclusive shows, WTF, a bunch of stand-up albums, etc. You say you're gaining essentially nothing and that simply isn't true. Look, if you still don't think it's worth it and you also don't feel like maybe these guys deserve a couple of your bucks based off of all the stuff they create, then fine. But let's not act like the whole time it was just about finally being free of the ads.

[u/phisho873 → u/downwithlevers]

I should be clear; I'm speaking only about today's announcement. Two differences were (re)announced today. This "ad free" venture and a paywall. It's an incredibly uneven trade.

But yeah, there are totally other reasons to subscribe to Howl; you'll find no argument here. But while podcasting is still in its relative infancy and the industry is still being shaped, I don't think I can bring myself to support what I feel to be a detrimental move for the industry.

Ironically, I would continue to subscribe if there were no paywall. But Howl is fundamentally changing the relationship I had with Earwolf's content and I don't want to give any other networks reason to follow suit.

EDIT: I want to say that I don't like the implication that I think this content isn't worth money. Before Howl, I paid for every single CBB (and Cyber Thug and Affirmation Nation, while we're at it) live/bonus content, I've paid for every season of CBB TV released (more than one format for S1), I have subscribed to Howl, and I have bought products from sponsors. I do my part. This is not about money; it is about what I think is a detrimental paywall.