technical question, advertising
I'm listening to a podcast from the BBC, which says "this podcast is supported by advertising outside of the UK" and then plays an ad.
Except the ads have all been specifically for Australia. I assume they're not just spamming all listeners with ads for Australian banks, but then my question is this:
How do they know to send Australian ads to my podcatcher?
How do they insert specialised advertising part-way into an mp3 file?
answer (technical question, advertising)
One of my main issues with this is: I sure hope the BBC has an archiving plan in place.
It's highly likely that Acast will go out of business before the BBC stops producing podcasts. What will happen to these downloads then? Will they still work, or will everything break?
technical question, advertising
@lizardsquid probably unlikely they do it live
most likely they've got versions with adverts spliced in for any region and then depending on your IP they send out whichever version is appropriate
re: technical question, advertising
@troubleMoney @lizardsquid geoip stuff seems likely, yeah. Have you considered seeing what happens if you use a proxy server located in another country?
could also be going by what your browser reports as its locale when downloading them; there are ways to change that too.
-F
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid Are they UK-produced podcasts?
I don't know if BBC Sounds is available in Australia, either, so that might be worth looking at?
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@Jo this is a BBC sounds podcast called "Murmurs"
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid It's definitely on BBC Sounds, but apparently that's only available in the UK at the mo. 
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@Jo my podcatcher is perfectly happy downloading from there, maybe you should double check
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid Depends how how it's set up but BBC definitely have the original files so they could probably make them available again either without ads or splice in ads themselves.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid They invented the `cat` command?
answer (technical question, advertising)
@madewokherd the thing that they claimed to invent is inserting targeted ads at download time, instead of less targeted ads at release time
answer (technical question, advertising)
@madewokherd (also it's a little more complex than cat, because you need to tweak the header as well, otherwise playback can malfunction)
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid Best I can tell, mp3 doesn't have a header.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@madewokherd it has headers for each frame, so it looks like this:
header data header data header data header data ....
if your ad is a single frame, you can insert it in as a (header data) set just before another header.
But if you try and insert it in the middle of a data section, then you get problems, because you'll have:
header data header da [header data] ta header data
Then the sync points don't match up, and you get errors in playback
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid Obviously, you wouldn't do it that way. You'd `cat part1.mp3 ad.mp3 part2.mp3`.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@madewokherd oh sure, I'm not saying it's super complex
(although that approach also would cause problems - if the files have different id3 tags, then mp3 players might not display things consistently)
The thing they're claiming to invent is the *dynamic* advertising part, where it figures out what ad to insert based on region, time of day, and other collected information about users.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid They invented targeted advertising?
answer (technical question, advertising)
@madewokherd that does seem to be what they're claiming, yeah
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid They did not invent this, stitcher has been doing this for a long time.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@quirk I thought Stitcher only does it through their platform? (as in you have to use a stitcher streaming app to access a podcast)?
This inserts ads into mp3s that are downloaded onto people's devices, regardless of what app they use.
answer (technical question, advertising)
@lizardsquid ah, yes, I think you are right
technical question, advertising
@lizardsquid Is the podcast played via a downloaded mp3 file or through a particular bit of software like an app or something for the bbc? If it's the former, I suppose it's possible that there could be set "ad break" sections in the mp3, and the page uses advertising algorithms to select specific pre-created ads for the downloader's country/"interests" etc, then inserts the relevant audio into those breaks.
technical question, advertising
@lizardsquid if it's the latter, then the easy explaination is that the player/app literally pauses the podcast to deliver an ad at specific "ad break" markers, plays the ad, then resumes the podcast much like a youtube ad does or whatever.
Disclaimer, I am in no way technical or knowledgeable about such topics I'm just... guessing here ^^;
technical question, advertising
@Nine the podcast is played via a downloaded mp3 file. As I discovered after some research: the ad is spliced into the file as it's being downloaded, and the ads are chosen based on Algorithms™
technical question, advertising
@lizardsquid oh dang I was right with my total guess? :O
answer (technical question, advertising)
So the BBC has partnered with a company called Acast, which claims:
"Acast’s sophisticated, contextual targeting uses dynamic insertion technology—which we invented—so brands can reach the right audience, in the right way, at the right moment, as many times as they require."
So the ads are inserted at the time of download, rather than at the time of production (the selling point of this being that a podcast's back catalogue can include modern ads).