[zachwlewis]

Many modern podcasts don't actually include any ads in their source audio, relying instead on dynamic ad insertion.

Many podcast hosts provide dynamic ad insertion functionality. Unlike baked-in ads, podcast creators mark the locations of where ads can be inserted and, when requested by a user, the host generates a new MP3 on-the-fly using the user's tracking data (geolocation, demographics, etc.) that is then downloaded to their device.

This allows old podcasts to continue to generate ad revenue by dynamically inserting ads from currently-running ad campaigns.

https://advertise.acast.com/news-and-insights/the-benefits-o...

[ericra]

This really addresses my question directly. Thank you. It makes a lot of sense.

I wonder if this ad insertion happens for downloading directly from RSS feeds as well. Typically, there is a link in the RSS feed directly to an .mp3 file, and I don't know if it would be possible to set the RSS link to a URL which would custom "build" a new mp3 for each download with dynamic ads injected. Is it just the case that some podcasts do not have "public" RSS feeds? I don't know if i've come across any...

[zachwlewis]

If downloaded from the podcast host, it'll always insert ads.

To answer your original question, I threw together a python script that takes an RSS feed and downloads all the podcasts in that feed.

https://gist.github.com/zachwlewis/7ad4182e21768dae98cabd17b...

Hope that helps!

[ericra]

Fantastic. I appreciate it very much!